Stage 1 Recap (Ended on Lap 80):
● Clint Bowyer started 33rd and finished 10th.
● Bowyer moved to 16th in the first 10 laps of the race.
● Moved to 12th by the competition caution at lap 30.
● Told the crew his car was getting loose longer into the runs.
Stage 2 Recap (Ended on Lap 160):
● Bowyer started 11th and finished eighth.
● Crew made adjustments to cool Bowyer’s brakes, which were glowing from the heat.
● Continued to tell the No. 14 crew that his car was more loose the longer it ran.
Final Stage Recap (Ended on Lap 267):
● Bowyer started ninth and finished 15th.
● Moved to seventh in the opening laps of the stage before falling back to 13th by lap 200 because his car was loose.
● Bowyer started creeping back up the scoring pylon late in the race, climbing to 11th with 40 to go.
● Restarted in 10th with 15 laps remaining. Six cars ahead of Bowyer took no tires, and William Byron took two.
● When the green flag fell, Bowyer raced with eventual winner Kevin Harvick until Byron triggered a six-car accident that severely damaged the No. 14 and brought out a red flag.
● The No. 14 crew made repairs after NASCAR lifted the red flag and managed to keep Bowyer on the lead lap but with a 15th-place finish.
Notes:
● Harvick’s margin of victory over second-place Martin Truex Jr., was .390 of a second.
● There were six caution periods for a total of 31 laps. Only 15 of the 38 drivers in the race finished on the lead lap.
● Bowyer finished 10th in Stage 1 to earn one bonus point and eighth in Stage 2 to earn an additional three bonus points.
● Harvick’s victory marked the 49th overall win for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR). It was the organization’s 45th points-paying Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series win and its third at Kansas.
● Saturday’s win marked SHR’s sixth victory in the first 12 races of the 2018 season.
● This was SHR’s ninth Cup Series victory with Ford. The team won its first race with Ford when Kurt Busch captured the 2017 Daytona 500.
Clint Bowyer, driver of the No. 14 Haas Automation VF-1 Ford for Stewart-Haas Racing:
“It was a solid run. All weekend long it was just not our weekend. We had tech issues and didn’t get to qualify. We started in the back and got up through there pretty good, but then kind of stalled out. We got wrecked there. I was trying to get us up in the top-five and got wrecked there. That’s just part of it, I guess.”
Next Up:
The next event on the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series All-Star Race on Saturday, May 19 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. The race starts at 8 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by FS1 beginning with a prerace show at 6 p.m.
TSC PR/Photo Sean Gardner/Getty Images