Young: Bowyer thriving in change to Wilson-led crew for RCR

Maybe Richard Childress just wanted to test his young driver. Maybe the successful Sprint Cup owner felt a shakeup was needed.

Or maybe it just made good financial sense to take Clint Bowyer out of his comfort zone in the 07 car and put him with a new RCR team.

Whatever the reason, the move has worked. Childress knew when he handed Bowyer’s team over to new driver Casey Mears that it would allow Mears, who is a slow starter and not a strong qualifier, a chance to adjust to RCR with a guaranteed starting position in early races.

And though Childress won’t admit it, the shakeup also was intended to light a fire under Bowyer. Though the fourth-year driver surprised many by making the past two Chases, there is a sense he could have achieved more. For his part, Bowyer did not openly criticize the move, deciding the better choice would be to embrace it as a challenge.

“When your boss says this is what you’re going to do, it’s pretty much what you’re going to do,” Bowyer said before qualifying Friday at the Bristol Motor Speedway. “It definitely was nerve-racking. You just don’t ever know. You always know what you’ve got in the bank with what you had. It’s hard to let that go, but maybe it was time for a change, and it’s really opened my eyes in the beginning part of this season with a completely new team.

“Change isn’t always bad, and I think it’s proven to be pretty good for me. ... I had a fun time and a great success with (crew chief) Gil (Martin) and them, but it wasn’t good enough. We weren’t winning championships, and we had three years together.”

By pairing Bowyer with energetic crew chief Shane Wilson, Childress is hoping to get Bowyer more involved with the everyday functioning of the team. So it had to come as a welcome sight when the driver showed up several days a week at the race shop before the season and is a regular at the shop now that the season has started.

The result is a driver/crew chief relationship that has developed more quickly than usual. Bowyer already sees a difference from last year.

“It’s already opened my eyes to what can become of this,” said Bowyer, who enters today’s race second in points. “We haven’t even hit our stride yet, and we’ve already had three good finishes out of four. I’m looking forward to the rest of the season. seeing what this team is made out of.

“Richard has surrounded me with good people and everybody with Shane Wilson. The more I get to work with Shane, the more I like him. He’s very methodical, he’s very organized and it’s really working well for the communication side being that we were behind in that area any way. Through his organization, it’s really helped us stay ahead of our learning curve.”

Childress is known as a someone with a keen eye for talent. He chose Bowyer for a ride simply by watching him run one ARCA race. But it was RCR teammates Kevin Harvick and Jeff Burton who pushed for the Bowyer-Wilson combination. Burton, for one, knew Bowyer would respond well to Wilson’s teachings.

“They’ve done a great job,” Burton said. “We insisted that Shane Wilson be a part of that team because we believe a great deal in his ability. Obviously Clint is extremely talented and they’ve come out of the gate with a point to prove, and I think a lot of people thought they were going to be in trouble and weren’t going to be able to be successful. I think that motivated them some.

“Shane’s done a really nice job of understanding these cars pretty quickly, which is a difficult thing to do. These cars will push you and challenge you. Sometimes a fresh approach is a good idea, too. It’s been good for Shane because he’s been able to pick the good and the bad out of each of the other teams.

“If you watch them during the weekend, they steadily get better all during the weekend, and that’s the sign of a good race team. I’m not surprised that they are being successful.”

Bowyer doesn’t come across as an overly competitive driver, but those who know him see otherwise. Even Bowyer admitted that all the preseason talk of how the change at RCR would hurt him has motivated him.

“It seems like over the last few years that I’ve been the one that they said couldn’t make the Chase and won’t make the Chase, and it was again this year,” he said. “That’s fuel for the fire, absolutely. That makes you go out and work harder and go that extra mile to make sure that you prove them wrong. I love it.”