By: Zach Catanzareti, Staff Writer
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – What makes a good race?
It’s one of the ultimate, almost paradoxical questions in all of motorsports and you tend to get a new answer with every person you ask.
Clint Bowyer is a sports fan. And he’s also a competitor. Following all sorts of sports throughout the state of Kansas, Bowyer knows what he wants to see when he shows up to an NFL game or baseball game.
However, as an athlete himself, one could wonder what makes a good race in his eyes, even when he’s a part of the show.
“You have to have it all,” Bowyer said Wednesday during Daytona Media Day.
Simply said, Bowyer wants an event full of highlights.
“No different to when I go to a football game… the Super Bowl sucked,” he said. “And I’m a football fan. I was lucky enough to be a Chiefs fan this year and it was one highlight reel after another. It was literally a highlight reel, four or five a game.
“There wasn’t a highlight reel of the whole Super Bowl. It was a snoozer. I’m sure there are football gods out there who say it was the best game in the history of football. But for me, there weren’t enough moments. We have to have that as well.”
In NASCAR terms, Bowyer craves the competitive action that first got him hooked on the sport at a young age.
“You have to have good passing, side-by-side, changes for the lead, you got to have cautions,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “I don’t want a caution, that means somebody’s wrecked or a had a problem. But there are many things that go into adding up to those moments.
“Without a caution at the end of some of these plate tracks, we may not have had those moments. Sometimes, all it takes is a caution and you get that moment.”
The big moments are what fans cling to well after the checkered flag flies, said Bowyer.
“That brings the moment back home to where someone says, ‘My gosh, you should have been there! You should have seen that,'” he said. “Those are what you have to have, we need more of those.”
Without losing his competitive eye as driver of the No. 14 Ford in 2019, Bowyer knows the fan experience is what drives the sport into every new season. And that’s where those big moments come in handy.
“We’re working for [fans],” he said. “We’re in the entertainment business, if we don’t think we are, we’re going to be behind. We are in the entertainment business. We have to go out and put on a good show.
“We’re making great strides and adjustments to make that happen. As a racer, I’m not a big fan of those things, but bringing those moments, I know that is the right direction.”