Clint Bowyer 13th at Phoenix

Stage 1 Recap (Laps 1-75):

● Clint Bowyer started 20th and finished 12th.

● Bowyer started fast, climbing to 15th by lap 10.

● Bowyer said No. 14 needed “a little bit of turn” in turns one and two.

Stage 2 Recap (Laps 76-150):

● Started 11th and finished 10th to earn one race point.

● Climbed into the top-10 for the first time in the opening laps of the stage.

● Said his car was loose into the corners and tight off.

 

Stage 3 Recap (Laps 151-312):

Started seventh and finished 13th.

Moved from 10th to seventh on the pit stop before the final stage started.

Drifted back to 10th in the opening laps because he “couldn’t turn” and had no rear grip.

With 80 laps remaining Bowyer pitted under caution from ninth for fuel, tires and adjustments to loosen the handling of his No. 14.

A penalty for speeding seconds after exiting his pit stall dropped him to 19th for the restart.

Bowyer took four new tires when he pitted under caution with 55 laps remaining and restarted the race in 15th.

The No. 14 suffered damage when another driver missed a shift at the front of the field on the final restart with 30 laps remaining.

Bowyer had climbed to 13th when the checkered flag fell.

 

Notes:

● There were seven caution periods for a total of 41 laps.

● Eighteen of the 39 drivers in the Can-Am 500k finished on the lead lap.

● Matt Kenseth won the Can-Am 500k to score his 39th career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series victory, his first of the season and his second at Phoenix.

● The Championship 4 contenders, Kevin Harvick, Brad Keselowski, Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr. enter the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway with 5,000 points each.

 

Clint Bowyer, driver of the No. 14 USA Network DAMNATION Ford Fusion for Stewart-Haas Racing:

“We weren’t very good on Friday, and my guys worked hard overnight and came up with some changes that made us a heck of a lot better Saturday, and that carried over to today. We had a good car and good pit stops. The speeding penalty hurt us. Dropped us back to 19th, but we fought back. I thought we were going to get a really good finish, but we got messed up with a lot of cars on that restart near the end.”

 

Next Up:

The next event on the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the season-ending Ford EcoBoost 400 on Sunday, Nov. 19 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. The final race of the 10-race playoffs starts at 2:30 p.m. EST with live coverage provided by NBC beginning at 1:30 p.m.

 

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