Bowyer Nears First Chase Spot

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) _ Clint Bowyer is off the bubble. Now he would like to get that big zero out of his Nextel Cup victories column. <br/><br/>The second-year Cup driver sits ninth in the points standings,

Thursday, August 30th 2007, 7:46 am

By: News On 6

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) _ Clint Bowyer is off the bubble. Now he would like to get that big zero out of his Nextel Cup victories column.

The second-year Cup driver sits ninth in the points standings, with two races to go before the 12-driver Chase field is set. The 13th-place driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr., trails him by 223 points.

Earning his first Cup victory, though, would make Bowyer feel better about his chances of contending for a title.

``Getting that first win _ not being able to do that, that's the most frustrating thing,'' said Bowyer, who matched a career best with a third-place finish on Sunday at Bristol.

But with the Chase nearing _ and once it starts _ Bowyer won't take any extra risks to win a race.

``It's affected our whole weekend, and not just how I drive in the car,'' he said Wednesday at Kansas Speedway, site of the Kansas 400 on Sept. 30. ``You've got to drive 100 percent, but you don't drive 110 percent. There's a lot of conservative measures that you go to: pit strategy, setup on the car, things like that.''

For a driver who's as hungry for a win as Bowyer is, though, that approach can be hard to take, especially because he's the only one among the top 12 without a victory this season.

Last week, Bowyer played it safe for much of the race at Michigan, starting ninth and finishing 17th. A bad pit stop cost him seven positions early in the race, and he ran cautiously for much of the second half.

Crew chief Gil Martin opted to change only two tires in the last pit stop, hoping to move Bowyer up, but enough other crews did the same thing that the gambit failed. Bowyer lost five spots in the closing laps, and on Wednesday, the memory still nagged at him.

``We had a fast car there,'' he said. ``I'm frustrated about the way we came out of Michigan, because that was the first time we were conservative and didn't do what got us there. It bit us, and we ended up 17th.''

Bowyer has five career Busch Series victories, two this year, and finished 17th in Nextel Cup competition as a rookie in 2006.

This year, he has 12 top 10 finishes and two top fives in the No. 07 Jack Daniel's Chevrolet and has been among the top 12 drivers since mid-March.

And with Jeff Burton seventh and Kevin Harvick 10th in the standings, Bowyer likely can count on having his two Richard Childress Racing teammates around for the Chase as well.

``As an organization, we've got to pick it up and make the next step,'' Bowyer said. ``We've been top-10 teams week in and week out, but you've got to be top-five teams to win the championship.''

This is also the first year in which 12 drivers can contend for the Nextel Cup. Before this season, only the top 10 drivers qualified for the 10-race Chase.

While expanding the field gives Bowyer a little breathing room, he's still conscious of where he fits into the pack.

``If you're in the Chase, you're in the Chase,'' he said. ``But I want to be _ I want to stay right where I'm at, if not move forward if I can. I don't want to be the 11th- or 12th-place guy and have everybody say, 'Aw, he didn't win a race and he only got in because they changed the rules.'

``I don't want to be that guy. I want to be the guy who would have made it, no matter what the format.''