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Clint Bowyer third at Richmond: "I thought this was our night"

Clint Bowyer spent lap-after-lap trying to run down Martin Truex Jr. for the lead and when he did, there was Joey Logano to snatch the opportunity away.

Clint Bowyer, Stewart-Haas Racing, Ford Mustang Haas Automation

Clint Bowyer, Stewart-Haas Racing, Ford Mustang Haas Automation

John Harrelson / NKP / Motorsport Images

Clint Bowyer, Stewart-Haas Racing, Ford Mustang Haas Automation
Clint Bowyer, Stewart-Haas Racing, Ford Mustang Haas Automation
Clint Bowyer, Stewart-Haas Racing, Ford Mustang Haas Automation

By the last 50 laps of Saturday night’s Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond (Va.) Raceway, Bowyer’s No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford was the fastest on the track.

Truex already had a more than a second lead and there were no cautions available to bunch the field. Bowyer methodically ran down Truex and twice got side-by-side with him with 20 to go but was unable to complete a pass for the lead.

Unfortunately for Bowyer, the longer it took for him to work on Truex, the closer Logano closed in behind him from third.

With 13 laps to go, Bowyer tagged the wall, which allowed Logano to gain considerable ground and he finally took over the second position with four laps remaining.

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“At the end of the day we drove up to (Truex) and you get terrible tight behind people,” Bowyer said. “We were already fighting a front end – I don’t know, we’ve had trouble with this thing all weekend long and made some good adjustments, kind of woke it up with the rear end but the front still wasn’t turning.

“I kept getting tighter and tighter and all of a sudden Joey run us down and next thing you know he’s on the outside (of me) and the rest is history.”

Bowyer still came away with a third-place finish, which is his fourth consecutive top-10 finish. After a slow start to the 2019 season, Bowyer is now eighth in the series standings.

“All in all, it was a good day for us,” he said. “Just man, dammit, you hate to get that close, but our Fords were fast again. I thought this was our night, but have to wait for next time.”

All four SHR drivers remain winless on the season and Bowyer believes the organization still has work to do to help change that.

“I don’t know what I could have done different,” he said. “Those cars take off with a lot more speed than we’ve had all year long.

“We seem to run them down on the long run, but we’ve got some work to do to find the short-run speed.”

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