What’s Wrong With Clint Bowyer?

For a driver that is seemingly all smiles in the garage area, Clint Bowyer doesn’t have much to be happy about.

His 2016 Sprint Cup campaign with HScott Motorsports has gotten off to a rocky start (to say the least), with almost all Fantasy NASCAR players passing over the driver of the #15 Chevrolet as if he was a start and parker. Although many expected Clint to have a down year during his transition from (now defunct) Michael Waltrip Racing to Stewart-Haas Racing in 2017, very few predicted that he would struggle this badly.

In the first six Sprint Cup events of 2016, Bowyer has struggled to even crack the top 25 in most races, and hopes of staying on the lead lap are pretty much an afterthought as soon as the green flag is displayed. In fact, at Martinsville last Sunday, Bowyer was lapped by the 52nd circuit of the race, equating to 27.4 miles in race distance. For the driver that owns the 5th-best average finish at that race track (among active drivers), it was almost sad.

And let’s not forget that this is the same guy that nearly won the championship in 2012.

Currently, Clint Bowyer sits 32nd in the Sprint Cup points standings, tied in points (82) with Brian Vickers–who has only completed in four races this year. Underfunded teams such as the #7 Chevrolet of Tommy Baldin Racing (with Regan Smith driving), the #38 Front Row Motorsports Ford with Landon Cassill, and the #23 BK Racing Toyota with David Ragan at the helm all currently outrank the #15 HScott Motorsports Chevrolet in points.

A Driver Past His Prime?

Regression in performance is a trend apparent in many drivers that are simply past their prime. In the 2013 season, Tony Stewart posted a (then) career-worst average finish of 16.1. Smoke followed that up with a new career-worst in 2014 (20.0), and then again “bested” his worst last season with an average finish of 24.8. Stewart is stepping away from the sport and retiring after this 2016 season.

In 2010, Mark Martin had his worst season since 2003 with an average finish of 15.3. He decided to make 2011 his final full-time season in the Sprint Cup Series and ended up with one of his worst seasons in his storied career, averaging a finish right around 18th. Mark had a resurgence of sorts in 2012 (15.2 average finish) but in the 28 races he competed in in 2013–the last year that he was in a race car–his average finish was 20.9–his worst mark ever in that category.

These aren’t isolated incidents. Three of the last four full-time seasons for Terry Labonte–who was recently indicted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame–saw him post the worst average finishes of his entire career. He raced full time in the series for over 25 years. In 2003, Rusty Wallace averaged a finish of 18.7, which was his worst since his second full-time season in NASCAR. He followed that up with an average finish of 18.6 the following year and decided to retire after the 2005 season.

So how does this all relate to Clint Bowyer? Well, let’s take a look at the stats. As mentioned before, Bowyer nearly won the Sprint Cup championship in 2012, finishing 2nd to champion Brad Keselowski. That stands as Clint’s best season on record in NASCAR’s top series, as he grabbed three victories that year and posted a career-best 10.9 average finish.

But his performance has rapidly declined since.

Bowyer had a minor regression in 2013, averaging a finish of 11.9 and ending up 7th in the final points standings. In 2014, though, Clint posted his worst average finish (17.1) since his rookie season in 2006, and then last year he wound up with an average result of 18.8. He hasn’t been to victory lane since that 2012 near-championship run.

Currently, through the first six races of 2016, Clint is averaging a finish of 27.3–a mark that the often-criticized Danica Patrick has exceeded (meaning beaten in this sense) in three of her first four seasons in the Sprint Cup Series. If Bowyer maintains this mediocre pace for the rest of the year, it will be (by far) his worst season competing against NASCAR’s elite. Which begs the question…

Is It The Equipment Or The Driver?

When you mention “HScott Motorsports,” it’s not an organization that is widely known. Without Clint Bowyer on its roster, it’d be safe to assume that most casual NASCAR fans wouldn’t have a clue about it. Thus, an argument can be made that he is driving in sub-par equipment this year while waiting to take over Tony Stewart’s #14 Chevrolet in 2017. But can you really, fully blame the cars? And do you truly believe that Bowyer moving to Stewart-Haas Racing is going to fix all of his problems?

Thanks to an alliance with both Stewart-Haas and Hendrick Motorsports, the HScott Motorsports cars are powered by decently strong engines–at least engines that can out-do a 27th-place finish on a regular basis. During last year’s announcement about the HScott move, Clint said:

I’ve got the best of the best when you talk about equipment. We’ve got Hendrick engines; we’ve got ties to Stewart-Haas Racing. These are the guys that are winning the races.  I now have that bond, that connection to this kind of equipment.  So, for me as a racecar driver that is huge.

So while the blame can partially be placed on the equipment and team at HScott Motorsports, that is nowhere near the full story. At some point, you have to start looking at the driver.

Can Clint Bowyer Make The Chase In 2016?

We can all agree that this #15 team isn’t going to make NASCAR’s version of the playoffs on points, so they’re going to have to find their way to victory lane somehow. The majority of races can pretty much already be written off for Bowyer, but he does have an outside chance of winning at four tracks in particular: Talladega, Sonoma, Daytona, and Watkins Glen.

Of those four, it’s Sonoma that Clint has the highest possibility of getting a win. That was the site of one of his three wins during that 2012 season, and he leads all active drivers with an 8.6 career average finish at that venue. At Watkins Glen, he has ended up 6th or better in three of the last four races. The road courses are also tracks that don’t really require the best equipment, as a driver’s skill can usually make up for a sub-par team or car. Remember, Kurt Busch almost won the 2012 Sonoma race with a broken #51 Chevrolet from Phoenix Racing.

With the restrictor plate races (Talladega and Daytona), it will be nice for Bowyer to lean on that alliance with Hendrick Motorsports, as they have furnished some of the best cars on those tracks over the past few years. Clint is also a two-time winner at Talladega with eleven top 10 finishes in twenty career starts. A win at either Talladega or Daytona would require more luck than anything, though, as those races are unpredictable and could be won by pretty much any driver in the field.

While his chances are slim, if Clint Bowyer were to make the Chase field in 2016, it would probably be more embarrassing than anything for this #15 team, as they would more than likely be destined for a first-round exit after the first three races of the playoffs.

It’s too early to tell whether Clint Bowyer has come to the end of his rope as far as racing in the Sprint Cup Series, but his downward trend in performance over the last few years should be a reminder to everyone that a simple move to Stewart-Haas Racing in 2017 probably won’t be a fix-all change. It’s going to be a very long rest of the season for this #15 team in 2016, and it wouldn’t be surprising if they’re already counting down the days to Homestead in November. Until then, we will all be reminded (on a weekly basis) of the struggles of a once-promising Sprint Cup driver as he constantly fails to out-run even the feeblest of opponents.