Catchfence

No. 33 Cheerios/Hamburger Helper Chevrolet

Race Notes and Quotes 

This Week’s Cheerios/Hamburger Helper Chevrolet at Watkins Glen International … Clint Bowyer will pilot chassis No. 300 from the Richard Childress Racing NASCAR Sprint Cup Series stable. This Chevrolet Impala, built in 2010 specifically for road course racing, has seen action three times – the first being a 31^st-place finish last season at Infineon Raceway and also last August at Watkins Glen International when Bowyer brought home a 32^nd-place effort. Most recently, Bowyer drove this racer to a fourth-place finish earlier this year after starting ninth at Infineon Raceway in June.

Career WGI Stats … This weekend’s road course race marks Bowyer’s 203^rd career NSCS start.

• In five NSCS starts at Watkins Glen, Bowyer owns one top-10 finish, posting his best finish of ninth in the August 2009 event.
• He has completed 99.8 percent of the laps (449 of 450) contested at the Watkins Glen, NY.-based track during his career.
• The Emporia, Kan., native owns an average starting position of 21.8 and an average finishing position of 18.8 at the 2.45-mile road course.

Red and Yellow … The familiar Cheerios/Hamburger Helper paint scheme will return to Bowyer’s No. 33 Chevrolet this weekend.

Getting Loopy … Bowyer holds some impressive loop data statistics through the first 21points-paying races of the 2011 season. He is fourth in quality passes (passing a car in the top 15 while running under green) with 1,318 quality passes so far this season.In addition, he is currently ranked ninth among all drivers in the category of average running position with a 14.16 average and 10^th in laps led running in the point position for 262 laps.

Weekend in the Poconos … After waking up Sunday morning sick and dehydrated, Bowyer and the No. 33 Good Sam Club Chevrolet team brought home an 18^th-place finish in the Good Sam RV Insurance 500 at Pocono Raceway, overcoming a tight-handling race car as weather conditions changed over the course of the 500-mile race.

Points Racing … Bowyer remains 12^th in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver championship point standings, 41 points out of the top 10.

CLINT BOWYER QUOTES:

You had two top-10 finishes in a row and then backed it up with 15^th- and 16^th-place finishes. Did you lose a little mojo there?

“I think we just lost the handling of our cars on that size of a race track. It was two weeks before Pocono in June that we started struggling. We’re working on it. It’s where we need to improve. Pocono is typically a good track for me and we have to get back to that and get a good finish. We’ve led laps there and I’ve felt like that’s a track that we can win at. Last time we were there in June, we were way off. We’re not going to bring that same package back this time.”

With the Pocono races so close together, is it hard to get it turned around in that short amount of time?

“Sometimes that can help you. The track is still fresh in your mind. You look back to the last time you were there and think what you could have done this. Well, that’s still in the back of your mind. That goes for both the driver and crew chief. Sometimes, that’s not always a bad thing.”

They call it the “Tricky Triangle.” What’s the trickiest part about that race track?

“I think getting off the corners well because the straightaways are so long. You have to get off turns one and three well. That’s where it’s all done. You have to get through the tunnel turn with speed, but turns one and three are the difficult corners. They are very rough. You have to get your car to bounce through there right, get yourself pointed in the right direction and get on the gas better than the next guy.”

- Richard Childress Racing, Press Release