Storylines: Don’t overlook Bowyer (Yahoo! Sports)
March 6, 2010
div.mailsubhead { font-size: 1.4em; font-weight:bold; margin-top:0.6em; margin-bottom:.5em;}hr { align:center; width: 20%; margin-top: 12px; margin-bottom: 12px; }
Someone, Clint Bowyer said Friday, is going to beat Jimmie Johnson.
And …
“I believe this could be the year.”
Related Video 
Crucial race for Junior
Crucial race for Junior
Atlanta Picks More NASCAR Videos More From Jay Hart Chattin with the champ Mar 5, 2010 To worship or not to worship the 48 Mar 2, 2010
Really, after what we’ve seen the last two weekends?
Clint Bowyer may get overshadowed by his more popular teammates, but over the last four seasons he's been the most consistent driver for Richard Childress Racing.US Presswire
“I feel like the competition is getting closer to the 48,” Bowyer said. “Look at Jeff Gordon; [Las Vegas] was his race to win.”
Give Bowyer some credit. It’s a bold statement to come out with when the guy you’re talking about is coming off back-to-back victories. The thing is, though, he’s right. Johnson didn’t have the best car in either race he won. And if you want to argue that he did at Auto Club Speedway, he certainly wasn’t much better than Kevin Harvick.
As a point of fact, Johnson won both races on pit road, which, for the field, is less of a concern than if he’d kicked their butts on the track. Johnson is acutely aware of this, saying Friday, “We have not been as strong as we’ve needed to be as a group.”
“[Crew chief] Chad [Knaus] has been on spot with adjustments and strategy at the end and gets some decent results for us,” Johnson said. “But as far as just heads-up racing, we haven’t been where we need to be here in a couple of years since the CoT came around.”
Considering he’s won two titles and more races than anyone in the CoT era, Johnson’s last point is hard to take seriously. But it does show the complete lack of complacency within Team 48. Even when they’re the best, they’re trying to get better.
But to Bowyer’s point, so is the competition.
What all this means for Sunday’s Kobalt Tools 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway is that the bull’s-eye on Johnson’s back just keeps getting bigger and bigger. However, the question that still needs to be answered is why.
Is it because everyone’s targeting Johnson? Or is it also because they’re closing the gap between them and him and, thus, getting a closer view?
Here are three storylines to watch for in Sunday’s Kobalt Tools 400 at Atlanta Motor Speedway:
1. So, who will challenge Johnson?
Going into the season, all eyes were on Denny Hamlin. Since then, they’ve shifted to Kevin Harvick, who’s off to a lightning-fast start. But overlooked in all the prognosticating is the driver who’s come out and said that Johnson is beatable – Bowyer.
Aside from a brutal 2009, in which everyone at Richard Childress Racing struggled, arguably no driver outside of Johnson has been more consistent over the last four seasons than the 30-year-old from Emporia, Kansas. He finished third in the standings in 2007 and fifth in 2008.
And while much is being made this season of the fast start by the three RCR drivers, Bowyer was off to a similarly fast start a year ago. He’s second in the points now, which is exactly where he was at this time in 2009.
Bowyer doesn’t get the notoriety because he’s not the No. 1 driver on his own team – Kevin Harvick is – nor is he RCR’s eldest statesman – that distinction belongs to Jeff Burton – but that will all change if he wins a few races and can string together enough top fives at the right time of year.
“We need to win races,” Bowyer said. “Jimmie is already two races up on all the competition, so [we] definitely need to win races to be able to be in the Chase and be able to compete with him.”
2. Is Joey Logano for real?
A year ago at this time, Joey Logano was in danger of falling out of the top 35 in the standings. Today, he's eighth.US Presswire
If you haven’t noticed, the top-ranked Joe Gibbs Racing driver isn’t Denny Hamlin or Kyle Busch. It’s Joey Logano.
Long gone is the talk that maybe Gibbs brought the teenager up to Cup racing too quickly. Early in his second season it’s quite clear that it’s only a matter of time before Logano is competing for wins on a consistent basis.
He’s already doing that at the Nationwide level, where he won five races last season. Though Nationwide success doesn’t necessarily transfer to the Cup level – or vice versa, as Johnson was mediocre in NASCAR’s triple-A series – Logano is competing with and beating the likes of Busch and Carl Edwards.
Logano is obviously pleased with where he sits in the standings – he’s eighth, higher than both Busch (12th) and Hamlin (22nd) – and there’s plenty of evidence to believe he’ll stay there. He’s finished fifth and sixth the last two weeks on intermediate tracks.
This weekend, it’s another intermediate track, the likes of which make up half of the 10-race Chase schedule.
“We gotta keep pushing and try to stay up where we’re at right now,” Logano said. “This week here is going to be a big test for us.”
3. Is Denny Hamlin done?
In just three weeks, Denny Hamlin has gone from No. 1 contender to having some wonder if he’ll even make the Chase. After finishes of 17th, 29th and 19th, Hamlin sits 22nd in the standings.
A year ago, Mark Martin found himself in a similar hole early in the season. The difference, however, is that Martin was running well only to be done in by several mechanical failures. Hamlin hasn’t had any failures, just a bunch of running around in the middle of the pack.
Earlier this week in his diary for USA Today, Hamlin questioned the power of the Toyota engine, saying they are giving up horsepower to their competition.
“When do you see Toyotas up front these days? Not at all,” Hamlin wrote. “I think Toyota is behind on their motors. In talking to our motor guy, we’re still trying to figure out what it takes to make a good, reliable engine and make as much power as we did when JGR was running Chevrolets three years ago. We’re learning and trying to figure that stuff out. We just had our chassis extremely good last year.”
Hamlin may have a point regarding this season. Toyotas have led just 50 of 725 laps run in 2010. But speed wasn’t a problem a year ago when he and teammate Kyle Busch ranked second and third, respectively, in total laps led.
Whatever the case, he’s still nowhere close to the top 12, while both his teammates are. And another sub-par run this weekend will only put Hamlin that much deeper in a hole.
Jay Hart is the NASCAR editor for Yahoo! Sports. Send Jay a question or comment for potential use in a future column or webcast.
Comments
Got something to say?
