Stage 1 Recap (Laps 1-80):
● Clint Bowyerstarted ninth and finished 14th.
● Raced as high as fifth by lap 44.
● Dropped to 14th after pit stop when his team elected to take four tires instead of two tires.
● Bowyer reported his rear grip seemed to go away in the later part of the stage.
Stage 2 Recap (Laps 81-160):
● Started 12th and finished 11th.
● Bowyer moved to ninth at the lap-100 mark.
● Crew told Bowyer his lap times were one of the four best on the track.
● Made routine, green-flag pit stop on lap 123.
● Late caution created a one-lap shootout, and Bowyer missed a top-10 stage finish by inches.
Stage 3 Recap (Laps 161-267):
● Started 18th and finished 19th.
● Bowyer pitted before the start of the stage and dropped to 18th.
● Stayed on the track during the caution at lap 177 and moved to fifth.
● Despite running at the front of the field, Bowyer’s chances for victory ended on lap 197 in a multicar crash coming off turn two.
● The No. 14 suffered significant damage, but the crew made repairs, after NASCAR lifted the red flag, to return Bowyer to the track.
● Bowyer’s wounded car maintained a respectable speed and finished the race.
● Sunday marked the third consecutive week Bowyer’s race has been ruined by another car’s accident.
Notes:
● There were 10 caution periods for a total of 49 laps.
● Twenty-two of the 40 drivers in the Hollywood 400 finished on the lead lap.
● Martin Truex Jr. won the Hollywood 400 to score his 14th career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series victory, his seventh of the season and his second at Kansas.
● Truex leads the championship standings with 4,069 points and holds a 27-point advantage over his nearest pursuer, Kyle Busch.
Clint Bowyer, driver of the No. 14 Haas Automation Ford Fusion for Stewart-Haas Racing:
“We had a pretty good Ford today and deserved a top-fve finish, but there just wasn’t anywhere to go in the wreck. My guys did a good job fixing us up so we could finish the race. I really wanted a good finish here in Kansas. We haven’t had a thing go right in three weeks, but there is a lot of racing left in the season. We’ve shown speed.”
Next Up:
The next event on the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the First Data 500 on Sunday, Oct. 29 at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway. It is the seventh race of the 10-race playoffs and starts at 3 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by NBCSN.
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