There were plenty of hits in Sunday’s Brickyard 400, but perhaps Clint Bowyer had the hardest.
Spinning into the inside frontstretch wall with 10 laps to go, Bowyer was near inches away from impacting the pit road wall, instead bouncing back into traffic and getting smashed by non other than his Stewart-Haas Racing teammate Kurt Busch.
Exiting his destroyed No. 14 Ford, Bowyer said it was too quick of an incident to avoid as Danica Patrick and Paul Menard made contact in front coming off Turn 4, causing Bowyer to break loose.
“He was getting hit pretty hard, they got together and he made an evasive move,” Bowyer said. “I didn’t know the No. 77 [Erik Jones] had a run oun me there.”
Boowyerb hit left-front first into a SAFER barrier wall before the impact from Busch.
“All hell broke loose,” he said. “It was a hard hit, felt like a hard hit. Then somebody hit me… I don’t know, felt like it did. It pretty much sucked.”
Before the wreck, Bowyer was gaining from his slow start to the weekend, starting 18th and moving into the top 10 on occasion.
“We were a bit off and found a way to make it better,” he said. “I thought we’d have a single-digit finish.”
Though it was only his second DNF of 2017, Bowyer is now right on the bubble for the final playoff spot. Kasey Kahne earned his first win of the season, moving Bowyer and Matt Kenseth down to the wire, as the No. 14 team is now 33 points behind the No. 20 crew for the final playoff spot of 16th with seven races to go.
“It was definitely not needed,” Bowyer said of his playoff situation post-Indy. “We’ll re-group, this is a strong team. I’m proud of the No. 14 team.”
Growing up in Easton, Pa., Zach Catanzareti has grown his auto racing interest from fandom to professional. Joining Frontstretch in 2015, Zach enjoys nothing more than being at the track, having covered his first half-season of 18 races in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series in 2017. With experience behind the wheel, behind the camera and in the media center, he thrives on being an all-around reporter.