A year after scandal, Clint Bowyer misses Chase

RICHMOND, Va. — For a moment, it looked as if Clint Bowyer had a chance. Unfortunately, that moment was fleeting.

Bowyer got a strong jump Saturday night on a restart with 64 laps remaining in the Federated Auto Parts 400 at Richmond International Raceway, but he couldn't catch Brad Keselowski, settled for a third-place finish and failed to make it into the Chase for the Sprint Cup.

"If I had to put a percentage on it, (Keselowski) had about 30 percent more grip than I had," Bowyer told Paste BN Sports after climbing from his car on pit road. "It was that way all the way around, every lap. Their team is rolling right now, and that's what it takes to win championships. Hopefully we'll get ours next year."

The failure to qualify came a year after Bowyer was accused of intentionally spinning at Richmond to help his Michael Waltrip Racing teammate Martin Truex Jr. get into the Chase field. MWR was hit with a $300,000 fine, Truex Jr. was kicked out of the Chase -- replaced by Newman -- and Bowyer was docked 50 points. NASCAR chairman Brian France later added Jeff Gordon as an unprecedented 13th driver because the team orders scandal hurt his chances of getting in the field.

On Saturday night, because of the finishing positions of Ryan Newman and Greg Biffle, Bowyer failed to make the 10-race Chase on points. His only chance was to qualify by winning the race.

The real loss may have been last week at Atlanta, where Bowyer finished 38th.

"My disappointment was last weekend," Bowyer said. "I'm not lying. I knew it was a long shot at best coming into today. It was going to take a win. I knew that was a tall order. We're just not quite there yet. l tried as hard as I could, and so did the team. This was our best effort here, but it just wasn't our year."

Instead, Newman (who finished ninth) and Biffle (who finished 19th) took the final two places in the Chase, which begins next week at Chicagoland Speedway.

"I'm an optimist, but I'm a realist," Bowyer said. "Right now, realistically we don't have a shot of winning the championship against the competition we're running against. We've got a lot of work to do and a lot of racing left to build on and win some races and (upset) some guys off who are running for a championship."

Saturday's finish matched his best of the season -- third at Talladega in May.

"That's all I had," Bowyer said after Saturday's race. "That's all we had as a race team."

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