By Aaron Bearden, Motorsports Editor
HAMPTON, Ga. — He wasn’t that one celebrating a dominant victory – that honor went to Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR) teammate Kevin Harvick.
But after 500 hectic miles at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Clint Bowyer was left with plenty of reasons to smile.
Bowyer capped off a strong afternoon with a late surge to claim third in Sunday’s Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500. The result was the Kansas City, Kansas native’s first top five since Martinsville Speedway in October.
“Man, I’m telling you our Haas Automation Ford was good all weekend long,” Bowyer said afterward. “All of our Stewart-Haas cars were fast. That’s a credit to everybody’s hard work over the offseason and it paid dividends here tonight.”
The run came at a critical time for Bowyer, who entered SHR with lofty expectations as he replaced retiring three-time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion Tony Stewart.
Bowyer started his SHR debut off strong, sitting among the preliminary playoff field into the early months of the summer. But a slump at the end of the regular season derailed his year, relegating the 38-year-old to an 18th-place finish after his fifth-consecutive winless season.
The veteran claimed the issues that led to that lost season revolved around consistency.
“I said it all off-season,” he said. “What we have to do is get more consistent, know what I mean?
“Over the course of my career, that’s kind of what’s kept me in the game is consistency, and last year we were spraying it all over the place. We’ve have good run and back it up with a bad one or two bad ones and then a good one. We were all over the place.”
His 2018 campaign started off with a 15th-place struggle in Daytona. But Bowyer’s strong top five in Atlanta – one which also netted him 11 stage points – elevated the Midwesterner to fifth in the championship standings ahead of the West Coast Swing.
More importantly, it also netted the No. 14 team confidence.
“You know, after last — we were at the big dance last weekend and dropped a cylinder, and everybody was dejected and bummed out, and we come here and unload four fast cars and did a great job as a company,” he said. “That’s what it takes. You’ve got to be able to unload good cars and then work together to fine tune them to make them good for the race and enjoy that strength in numbers, and that’s certainly what we had going on this weekend.
“I’m proud of everybody and all our partners – Mobil 1 to Wix to One Cure and everybody involved, he later continued. “It’s a lot of fun to be able to run like that so early in the season.”