Clint Bowyer ready to revive career

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Clint Bowyer hasn't won a race since 2012, hasn't made the playoffs in three years and is coming off an embarrassingly bad season.

The worst of his career. It was so bad the one-time championship contender was a backmarker in nearly every event.

But there was never reason to panic for Bowyer, who was long-slated to replace three-time NASCAR champion Tony Stewart when Stewart retired at the end of last year. It meant a happy ending for Bowyer. He would get to move to Stewart-Haas Racing, his one-year banishment to HScott Motorsports — where he was stashed for a year to wait for Stewart's finale — finally over. Bowyer would get his reprieve.

He gets his first ride in a brand new shiny Ford Fusion, one adorned with Stewart's beloved No. 14 on the side, when practice for the Daytona 500 begins Saturday.

It's fair to ask Bowyer, after failing to run well for such a long stretch, if he still knows his way to victory lane.

"Hey, that's a real legitimate question," Bowyer said. "You just don't know. I think the last time I was in a good car, I was good. I think that I'm a smarter driver than I was three years ago. I think I'm plenty capable of winning races. I love what I see at Stewart-Haas, I really do believe if I'm going to win a race this is the exact team I'm going to win with."

Bowyer is one of the skilled restrictor-plate racers at NASCAR's two largest tracks, and he can typically rise to the challenge of a tight pack and split-second decision making. He's a two-time winner at Talladega and has three top-five finishes at Daytona. It makes Daytona International Speedway probably the best place for him to debut with a new team because he's so comfortable at the track.

There was only one chance for Bowyer to get in the car before Daytona, but it was a team test at Phoenix in which only one driver could represent the organization. The natural pick was to send Kevin Harvick, who has eight career victories at the Arizona track.

Bowyer didn't challenge the call, and like teammates Kurt Busch and Danica Patrick, he will utilize all the information Harvick gathered. But until he actually pulls his new car out onto the track Saturday, Bowyer doesn't know what to expect. He will be with his third different manufacturer in three years — he drove a Toyota for Michael Waltrip Racing, then a Chevrolet last season — and now he is in a Ford as SHR makes a long-planned switch.

The manufacturer change doesn't bother Bowyer, and neither do his results the past few years. He's a driver with high energy and a short attention span, so the year waiting for his seat to open was agony.