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Takeaways from Kansas: Clint Bowyer 'lucky' to advance to third round

Nick Bromberg
College football and motorsports writer

KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Every Kansas race is a homecoming for Emporia native Clint Bowyer. And every Kansas race is a poor one for Bowyer.

OK, that second sentence is an overgeneralization. But Bowyer has never won at the track closest to his hometown and has finished in the top 10 just once in the last 10 races here. He was 13th on Sunday and advanced to the third round of the playoffs as the eighth driver in the eight-driver field.

Bowyer entered the race 25 points ahead of Ryan Blaney in the points standings. He finished the day just six points ahead of Blaney, who finished seventh and gobbled up a bunch of stage points that Bowyer didn’t.

[Elliott emerges as title contender with Kansas win]

“It was enough, barely,” Bowyer said. “We were lucky, really. It was ugly. I wanted to be better than that. I don’t know. I don’t know what I am missing here. It isn’t my guys. They are giving me good cars. They are fast. I just can’t figure out how to get around this damn place. I definitely have to be better than that.”

Bowyer escaped a pit road penalty on his final stop of the day when a wheel taken off his car rolled into the pit stall ahead of him. According to NASCAR rules regarding pit stops “the removed tire/wheel must not be allowed to roll free into an adjacent competitor’s pit box.” However, NASCAR said it was not an uncontrolled tire penalty since the wheel had already been rolled to the inside half of Bowyer’s pit box.

Maybe a clearer rule in the rulebook is necessary for future races.

Had Bowyer been penalized he likely would have lost a lap on his drive-through penalty. The 18th-place car was the last car one lap down, so Bowyer would have lost just five more points. With a gap of six to Blaney, a penalty would not have impacted the playoff standings.

Keselowski knew he was in trouble during first stage

Brad Keselowski had a fast car throughout practice and qualifying at Kansas. That speed didn’t carry over to the race. Or, if it did, other cars got faster.

“I would say about the end of that first stage it was pretty obvious that we needed something after I saw some things on the other cars,” Keselowski said. “We needed something to step up but it just wasn’t there. We just weren’t as good today as we were yesterday and I am not sure why. Everyone else seemed to find a little from practice and we were about the same, maybe a little worse than we were in practice.”

Keselowski finished sixth but it wasn’t good enough to advance to the third round because of his late pit stop for fuel at Talladega. Despite winning three-straight races in September the 2012 champion hopes for a second title will have to wait until 2019.

Kurt Busch moves on despite finishing 18th

Like his teammate Clint Bowyer, Kurt Busch was a bit nervous about his playoff chances during Sunday’s race at Kansas. Busch had an uncontrolled tire penalty and spent the second half of the race a lap down.

Busch finished 18th, the last car on the lead lap. At multiple points he was the first car a lap down and would have gotten back on the lead lap with a caution. But Sunday’s race featured just three cautions — the only one that wasn’t for a stage break came in the first stage when William Byron’s engine exploded.

Was Busch hoping for a caution during that green-flag final stage?

“If we’re in the lucky dog spot I would never expect a caution,” he told Yahoo Sports.

Despite running out of fuel on the last lap at Talladega Busch scored enough points in the first two races of the second round to advance to the round of eight. All four Stewart-Haas Racing cars are represented in the third round.

“I am really happy,” Busch said. “It is exciting for us. It is our goal to win the championship. We are an elite eight team when we started Daytona and here we are, we did it.”

Passing was … not plentiful

Sunday’s race featured just one pass for the lead that wasn’t involving a pit stop cycle.

“When we tested here a month or so ago we tested the top [groove[ a lot because we knew that was kind of going to be a place to be,” Kyle Busch said. “I felt like we were one of the best cars up there all day long.”

“But the problem is when you get to the next guy in front of you, you’re running the top, he moves up in front of you, there’s nowhere for you to go. You can’t dive bomb to the bottom.”

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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.

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