Clint Bowyer knows better than to take what happens at Bristol Motor Speedway to heart.
The 39-year-old led five times for 24 laps and was a constant threat inside the top-five for much of Sunday’s Food City 500 but contact with Joey Logano derailed his chance with 69 laps to go. The two veterans were racing for third when they came together in the middle while crossing the start-finish line.
The contact punctured Bowyer’s tire and sent him in the wall, contact with the wall, resulting in a caution.
Bowyer immediately responded with a series of explatives and F-bombs directed towards the reigning Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion. Bowyer felt Logano cut down.
Bowyer ultimately took his damaged car and finished seventh with it. He also carried no resentment towards Logano upon leaving Thunder Valley
"Yeah I mean it was," he said. "He was racing me pretty hard. I could get down under him and he was diamonding (the corner). He just didn’t leave me much room there. It’s time to race there’s no question about it. We barely touched. Just knocked the valve stem out of it or something. hit it just right. The fender caught or something. Typical luck here, damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
"We put ourselves in position. Our Stewart Haas Racing Haas Ford was good. Damn I wanted to get that thing in Victory Lane. Such a good-looking car. Just didn’t get it done."
Most of Bowyer’s frustration centered around having another chance to win and not closing out. Bowyer got off to a slow start with Stewart-Hart Racing standards with just one top-10, a fifth, in his first five starts.
He’s now finished seventh at Martinsville, second at Texas and seventh at Bristol.
Bowyer wanted to close out.
"We had a good car, it’s just horribly disappointing," he said. "You get that close. Long runs were my strong suit. I couldn’t take off all day long. Some of those things made sense. We were down a little bit on air and it took a little bit of time for them to come in. The problem is when you balance around that and you just pump the air-pressure up, then it doesn’t work either and you don’t handle there. It’s just disappointing."
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