Clint Bowyer’s 3rd-place finish boosts slumping Michael Waltrip Racing

The track is unlike any other in the Sprint Cup Series.

Success on Sonoma Raceway doesn’t necessarily translate elsewhere during the season.

Still, Clint Bowyer’s third-place finish in Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 on the road course at Sonoma Raceway was a welcome change for Bowyer and Michael Waltrip Racing.

“Just, you know, just to get that close and can’t seal the deal, it’s been a long time since we’ve won, but we’re trying,” said Bowyer, whose previous best finish this season was seventh in the season-opening Daytona 500.

“I was digging hard. My guys brought me a great race car.　We were fast all weekend long, and we were close.”

Close isn’t always a good feeling for drivers but Bowyer’s finish was the first top-five finish of the year for theMWR organization.

“The No. 41 (Kurt Busch) was probably the fastest car all weekend long. We were right there with him,” Bowyer said. “It was fun to come out here in wine country and be able to compete like that.

“This is where we need to be running. We need to be able to go to these regular race tracks and keep this momentum and confidence level up that we have when we come out here.

“It’s unfortunate – you get that close and you want to get greedy.”

Bowyer ran strong all weekend but his team’s decision to pit for new tires on a caution with 10 of 110 laps remaining helped provide Bowyer the chance he needed to run down the five cars ahead of him that elected not to pit.

“ (Jimmie) Johnson, he was waiting to see what everybody was going to do and I was going to wait until it was too late for him and then jolt in there,” Bowyer said. “I saw (Busch), and I was like, ‘Wait, wait, wait, don’t go yet.’　I was afraid (Johnson) would try to jerk it (down pit road).”

This story was originally published June 28, 2015 at 9:07 PM with the headline "Clint Bowyer’s 3rd-place finish boosts slumping Michael Waltrip Racing."