Clint Bowyer - No. 2 BB&T Preview

Event Preview Fact Sheet - Event/Date: Helluva Good! 200 – May 31, 2008
Venue: Dover International Speedway – Dover, Del.

• NOTES:

* This Week’s BB&T Chevrolet at Dover International Speedway … Clint Bowyer will pilot Chassis No. 063 from the Richard Childress Racing NASCAR Nationwide Series stable. This is the same BB&T Chevy Monte Carlo SS Bowyer drove to victory in the rain-shortened Sharpie Mini 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway. Prior to that, Bowyer drove this car to a ninth-place finish in the 2007 season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. 

* Dover Details … Bowyer has taken a one-year sabbatical from Nationwide Series competition at Dover, having not competed in NASCAR’s junior division at DIS since September 2006. In four starts at the track formerly known as Dover Downs, Bowyer has one win and three top-five finishes. He boasts a strong 6.8 starting average and an even better 6.5 finishing average. At the same time, the six-time NNS winner has completed all 802 laps run over those four starts. 

* The First 13 … Over the first 13 NASCAR Nationwide Series races of 2008, Bowyer and his Dan Deeringhoff-led No. 2 BB&T racing team have recorded one win, five top-five and 10 top-10 finishes. The Emporia, Kan., native boasts a strong 5.9 starting average coupled with a 9.1 average finishing rate. At the same time, Bowyer has completed all but 26 of the 2,269 laps of competition this season. * Bowyer in the Loop …

o Average Running Position … According to NASCAR’s Loop Data Statistics, Bowyer leads the Average Running Position category with an 8.890 ARP. The ARP is derived from taking the sum of a driver’s position on each lap and dividing it by the number of laps run in each race.

o Laps in the Top 15 … Meanwhile, the six-time NNS winner has spent 2,008 of the 2,269 laps completed this season (88.5 percent) running in the top 15.

o Driver Rating … Bowyer also enjoys a 106.2 Driver Rating – second only to Kyle Busch (110.7). The Driver Rating is a formula that combines the following categories: wins, top-15 finishes, average running position while on the lead lap, average speed under green, fastest lap, most laps led and lead-lap finishes. The maximum a driver can earn in each race is 150 points. The Driver Rating number is used pre-race as a prediction tool and post-race as a performance evaluator.

o Laps Led … Bowyer has led 213 laps in Nationwide Series competition this season and trails only Busch and two-time Sprint Cup Series Champion Tony Stewart in that category.

* RCR Nationwide Notes at the Monster Mile … In 33 Nationwide Series starts ay Dover’s high-banked one-mile concrete oval, RCR boasts two poles, two wins, nine top-five and 18 top-10 finishes. At the same time, RCR-prepared race cars have led 565 laps at the “Monster Mile.”

 * Birthday Boy ... Bowyer will celebrate his 29th birthday on Friday, May 30. * Catching Up With Clint … Bowyer will meet with the gathered press outside the No. 07 transporter inside the Sprint Cup Series garage area Friday, May 30 at 11 a.m. 

* Double Down at Dover Downs … Following his duties behind the wheel of the No. 2 BB&T Chevy, Bowyer will turn his attention to the No. 07 DIRECTV Chevrolet Impala SS for Sunday’s Best Buy 400 benefiting Student Clubs for Autism Speaks NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race. Flag-to-flag coverage of the first of the division’s two stops at the “Monster Mile” will take the green flag Sunday, June 1 beginning at 1:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. The race will be televised live on FOX and broadcast on the Motor Racing Network and Sirius Satellite Radio. Qualifying for the 13th points-paying race on the 2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series schedule will be telecast live on SPEED Friday, May 30 beginning at 3 p.m. EDT. 

* Up to Speed … Live coverage of the Helluva Good! 200 from Dover International Speedway will take the green flag Saturday, May 31 at 2:30 p.m. EDT. The race will be televised live on ESPN2 and broadcast from coast to coast on MRN and Sirius Satellite Radio. Qualifying for round 14 of the NASCAR Nationwide Series championship will be televised live on ESPN2 the same day at 10:30 a.m. EDT. MRN and Sirius Satellite Radio will broadcast qualifying updates live.

CLINT BOWYER QUOTES

Since you finished 19th in your first start, you’ve finished second, fourth and you won the last time you ran a Nationwide race at Dover.

“I enjoy Dover. It’s just a fun, get-up-on-the-wheel, make-things-happen race track. It’s fast … it’s a big Bristol is what Dover is. I love racing there. I’ll never forget how intimidated I was the first time I went there. I’ve gotten better over the years, it’s taken time but I feel like I’m a lot better now than I was three or four years ago. Dover is definitely a good track for us and I can’t wait to get there.”

Has your Nationwide car always felt good at Dover?

“I was a couple laps down the first time and I thought I was going to die every lap. Somehow, I went back there for the fall race and everything clicked. I have no idea why. The first lap on the track in the September race, I was six-tenths of a second faster than I’d ever been. I guess it was just something that I picked up. I like Dover. It’s fast, it’s racy so I always like going there.”

Did you feel like you could have won that day?

“I did. We had a good day. Dover is one of those tracks where you want to win. At some of these mile-and-a-half tracks, you’re only as good as the equipment and you really don’t have much of a say so. At places like Bristol, Dover, Daytona and Talladega, you have to make things happen. If the car isn’t handing, you can pick up your end of the deal and make something happen. I won the Nationwide race at Dover the last time I ran it and I want to get a Sprint Cup win as well.”

There’s not a whole lot of room to run off at Dover and closing speeds are very high. Do some of the less experienced guys make the race a little more treacherous?

“It’s an eye opener. The way these lapped cars have been lately, it’s going to be wild. I’d really like to see NASCAR bump up the minimum speed for the Nationwide race at Dover. No offense to anyone. I totally understand what those guys are trying to accomplish but the problem is, if the faster guys come up on a car that’s running 50 mph slower, bad things can happen in a hurry.”