No. 15 5-hour ENERGY Toyota driver Clint Bowyer came within two laps of winning at Martinsville Speedway on April 1 – the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series’ only short track race run in 2012. The series visits another short track Saturday night at Richmond International Raceway where Bowyer should be one of the favorites. The Emporia, Kan. native owns top-six finishes in three of the last five races and top-five qualifying runs in the last three races. The 2008 Richmond race winner’s stellar inaugural season at Michael Waltrip Racing took a hit Sunday when mechanical issues forced an early exit and a 36th-place finish at Kansas Speedway.
CLINT BOWYER ON RICHMOND: “Richmond is one of my favorite racetracks. It’s one of those racetracks that we’ve always run well at – I’ve won in both the Nationwide and Sprint Cup Series and it’s a track that I always look forward to going to. I love night races, but I don’t like the night schedules because there is nothing to do all day. I want to race and hate the waiting.”
GETTING PAST KANSAS: “There is nothing we can do about what happened at Kansas except move on. There’s nothing you can do about that. That’s racing. You go home and get ready for the next weekend and make sure that all they guys stay focused and pumped up. We just got to go back out there and get it back this weekend in Richmond. The good thing is Richmond is a good racetrack for me to bounce back.”
BRIAN PATTIE ON RICHMOND: “Richmond I’ve had circled on my calendar for a while – the same with Loudon and Martinsville. Clint has a great track record at those racetracks and MWR has a good short track program. Martinsville worked out quite well for 499 laps – hopefully this race we can do the same but keep it there at the end.”
MWR
