By: Zach Catanzareti, Staff Writer
During the longest green-flag run of the night at Darlington Raceway, the race came to a sudden end for Clint Bowyer.
Running his Ned Jarrett throwback, the No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford was involved in a hard accident with Ryan Newman as the No. 31 was slowed to enter pit road while Bowyer was coming in full-speed.
Unable to focus on the Newman’s pace, Bowyer put the blame on lapped cars, sparking heat on their lack of pace on a narrow track like Darlington.
“It’s lapped cars who are 50 laps down all over the damn place, it’s pretty frustrating,” Bowyer said. “I’m about tired of that.”
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In an odd accident, it was significant enough to end Bowyer’s night on lap 309. The untimely end made Bowyer frustrated, as he had to “dodge slow cars” practically from the start.
“This track is too narrow for those cars to be that far off the pace,” he said. “You’re in and out of those guys, diving all over the place trying to navigate around them, trying to figure out where the hell they’re going.
“Then you come up to someone who is actually trying to compete in the race and you’re not on your game.”
Bowyer still takes the blame for the accident given the distraction from lapped cars.
“I ran over him,” he said of Newman. “I didn’t see him wave. As I said, when you come off Turn 2 and pass the 37 lapped cars and you get your bearings, I didn’t see it. He stopped right in front of me and I hit him hard.”
The two-time 2018 winner had a quiet night, starting 17th and running off the lead lap at the time of the accident.
“Obviously, I’m pissed off and frustrated but that seems to be the way for me every time I come here,” he said. “We ran decent, we had a frustrating night. Just mistake after mistake and obviously, we ended up wrecked.”
Everyone deserves a chance but these lap cars being as far off the pace as they are and not getting out of the way is ridiculous.
— Clint Bowyer (@ClintBowyer) September 1, 2018