By: Zach Catanzareti, Staff Writer
Clint Bowyer was among the many drivers who left Friday’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series qualifying in a sour mood after frustration and confusion grew as each round came to a close at Texas Motor Speedway.
Bowyer, who qualified 25th for Sunday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 500, was fuming with anger after his No. 14 Ford was blocked by Ryan Newman’s No. 6 as the field sat on pit road during the second round of qualifying.
With rule changes that, in Bowyer’s view, were not followed (with Newman not receiving a penalty on pit road) the veteran was disappointed by the sport.
“I guess this is just a make-up-the-rules-as-we-go event in qualifying,” Bowyer said. “It’s sad. Those people up there paid a lot of money to bring their families here to watch a qualifying session and people going out to try their best. And you’re just sitting around waiting because you know your best is only good enough if the guy in front of you does a good job. That’s not qualifying.
And following the qualifying confusion two weeks back at Auto Club Speedway, Bowyer was outraged at the lack of “learning” from NASCAR.
“Learn from your mistakes, that’s how you get better,” he said. “We already had this failure and here we are doing it again.”
Bowyer believes it will only get worse if significant changes aren’t made.
“When it doesn’t work, you can’t just keep trying it,” he said. “We’re lucky these keep happening. Wait until a wreck happens on pit road, we all know it’s coming.
“You can’t go too fast because you’ll be caught speeding, you can’t go too fast because it’s discretionary. What the hell speed am I supposed to go? Just tell me when to go and maybe I’ll just do that.”