Our series of weekly NASCAR driver interviews continues with Clint Bowyer, who is spending this season at HScott Motorsports before taking over Tony Stewart's No. 14 car in 2017.
Q: What is an errand or chore in your daily life people might be surprised to learn you do yourself?
A: Man, usually mowing. When you have a big farm like that, you’re mowing at this time of year. There are two of us who do the mowing — my caretaker, Terry, and I — so I'm usually mowing a pasture or something. I refuse to weed-eat, though. That sucks.
Q: If you could do any race over again, which race would you choose?
A: D'aw man! The Daytona 500 has been a few of them. I’ve gotten close a few times. It’s just one of those tracks — if you’re in the top 10 on the last few laps, you have a shot at it. Been there a few times, just haven’t been able to capitalize with that right push and that magical moment some of them have.
Q: The longest race of the year is 600 miles. How long of a race could you physically handle without a driver change?
A: Well, my first reaction would be I would go mow NASCAR’s yard if they would make it a 400-mile race. It gets to the point where it’s like, “What the hell are we doing here?” Because it all comes down to the last 20 laps or the last fuel run at those long races.
You know, I’ve been there in the 600 where I felt like I couldn’t go another lap and I’ve been there where I felt like I could drive the rest of the night and most of the next day. It really does depend on the tempo of your race, the handling of your car and the way you’re running. If you’re running up front, you’re pretty much on cruise control and you’re not running 100% — you’re running 80% — and you’re pretty comfortable.
Q: Let’s say president of NASCAR was an elected position voted on by the drivers, and you decided to run. What would one of your campaign promises be?
A: I would work on the schedule. It wouldn’t be four hours or whatever it is of tech (inspection). That’s kind of a missed opportunity. They’ve got us here; we might as well be on that racetrack putting on a show for the fans.
Q: At the start of this year, exactly 2,900 drivers had ever raced in the Sprint Cup Series. Where do you rank among those 2,900?
A: Damn! I have no idea. The stats — you could quickly look that up and figure it out. It’s hard to judge that over the years, because if I could run three times a week like they did (in NASCAR’s early days), I think you could improve your results. Everybody always tries to judge racing as you see it today to racing as you saw it back then, and it’s just simply not matchable.
They had one car they raced; we have a fleet of cars that are built differently for different tracks. They had five employees; we have 500 employees. You know what I mean? It’s so different. It’s hard to judge where a guy like Dale Earnhardt ranks, let alone yourself.
Q: What do you think your reputation is, and is that reputation accurate?
A: (Laughs) Probably pretty accurate! I think everybody knows that I like having fun. The biggest thing is, people can be misled into thinking I’m not being serious. When I’m competing, I’m dead serious and I want to beat these guys. That’s something that’s misunderstood about me sometimes. But that’s what I love about this sport — the media and TV do such a good job of covering the sport itself that you understand the characters within the people, and that’s why fans have such strong thoughts on any specific driver.
Q: A famous chef wants you to invest in the new restaurant he’s opening, but he wants you to pick the cuisine. What type of food would your restaurant serve?
A: Well, you can’t have a restaurant without having a solid cheeseburger. So you have to start there, first and foremost. And then from there, it all comes down to a good steak. If you don’t have a good steak, you’re not (crap) in the restaurant business.
And the third thing is to make sure you don’t have any kind of sushi at all.
No sushi? Aw, man.
I have no idea how you could have a sushi restaurant and make a dollar. It’s just weird. Whatever happened to grilling your food and making an event out of it? The event shouldn’t be cutting it up! The event is cooking it and enjoying it.
Q: What is the most daring thing you’ve done outside of racing?
A: Trying to raise that boy right there! (Points to son Cash, who is whirling around the driver motor home lot in a miniature car.) Look at him, he’s a maniac.
Nah, the most daring thing outside a race car is getting on (Interstate) 77. That’s pretty daring, I would say. There are some lunatics driving on that road.
Q: In a move to generate more excitement, NASCAR decides in an upcoming race it's going to require every driver to have a passenger in the car. You get to pick the passenger. Who do you choose?
A: Oh man. It would definitely be a comedian. Could you imagine somebody like Eddie Murphy riding with you? By the end of it, you’d be screwing up on purpose so he’d make fun of you and you could hear what he had to say. You would put him in situations where he had to comment on it. That’s what life is all about: A good laugh. And it would be a lot of fun to laugh with somebody in the car, because I’m usually either laughing at myself or by myself on somebody else’s behalf.
So you wouldn't mind getting insulted during the race?
Trust me. You screw up more than what people can see on TV. And those are the moments you’re laughing at the most — when you really do something dumb. It’s like, “Holy (crap), how in the world did I do that?”
Q: How often do you talk inside the car without hitting the radio button?
A: Never. It’s too easy to hit a button. And if you ever listen to my radio, you’d understand that. But it’s not fair! That’s our pop-off valve. Honestly, most of the time you’re talking to yourself. Sometimes the crew will say, “What did you just say?” I’ll say, “I’m just talking out loud, damn it! Get in my world here.” You use that as a tool to relay the information, but at the end of the day, that’s your only source of entertainment in the car. Luckily for me, I have a funny spotter (Brett Griffin) who is the same way I am. Together, we’re pretty dangerous on the radio.
Q: Who will win the Sprint Cup in 2021?
A: Five years from now? I don’t care who wins in 2021, but I do care that I win one before I quit. I’ve raced for championships my whole life, and that’s the way I was raised. You were always racing for a series title and we were always tied to a points system. That’s why I was always hesitant when they started coming up with the Chase and a little more "gimmicks," if you will, to deplete that a little bit. That’s something that was always instilled in me in an early age — not only competing for that night, but competing for that year-end championship.
Q: I’ve been asking each driver to give me a question for the next interview. The last one was with Blake Koch, and he wanted to know if you pulled back on the brakes for less drag when you did the Supercross holeshot in Atlanta.
A: No, the brakes were pulled in full when I was overshooting the corner and smoking it into the barrier. So, no, Blake, I definitely didn’t have the brakes pushed back. The levers were pulled back as hard as I could, as I was in an “Oh (crap)" moment. They were used in their entirety, to their fullest extent. It just wasn’t enough. I was out of real estate. And the biggest part was it was in front of 70,000 fans. That sucked.
Follow Gluck on Twitter @jeff_gluck
