Around the Track: RIR

Bowyer experiencing highs and lows, both on and off the track

Cup rookie Clint Bowyer dropped six spots to 18th in points after being involved in a Lap-9 wreck during Monday's race at Talladega Superspeedway The 40th-place finish was his worst of the season a week after collecting a season-best fifth at Phoenix.

Now Bowyer heads to Richmond International Raceway with the same car he made his Cup debut in for Richard Childress Racing last April at Phoenix and drove again two weeks ago at Phoenix. Bowyer has two starts at Richmond in a Busch Series car, finishing ninth after starting second in the first race last season and finishing 11th in the second race.

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In Jack Daniel's "Around the Track,'' Bowyer addresses each week's venue as well as his philosophies on racing and life in general around NASCAR.

I've definitely seen both the highs and the lows of racing the past two weeks.

Then to top it off, I woke up on Tuesday to a call that my dad had gone to the hospital to have his appendix taken out.

Old Pops, he'd been fighting a real stitch at Talladega. We didn't think much of it. Mom went home to Kansas, and he was down here in North Carolina by himself.

Then he called Tuesday morning and said he was in the hospital.

The toughest part will be keeping him down. He'll want to head to Richmond, I'm sure. I don't think I've ever raced without my parents being there. There's nobody that can put you in your place and set the line straight better than your dad.

I'm 26 years old, but you've still got to have a line drawn for you every now and then.

So obviously there's a lot going on, particularly having to test at Lowe's Motor Speedway -- which I was late for after going to the hospital -- on Tuesday and Wednesday after just getting back from Talladega.

The important thing is Pops is all right and my team will be all right after a tough week.

It's so competitive in this series and you can't afford to have races like we did at Talladega. We've got to fight back with three or four solid runs in a row to get back where we were.

Richard Childress called me Monday night just to make sure everything was still good and upbeat. He told me to make sure I don't try to get it all back in one race.

The biggest thing I keep learning is if you have a 15th-place car make sure you finish 15th and don't finish 40th. It's a hard luck lesson to learn, but a powerful lesson to learn.

Unfortunately, with the way that accident came down at Talladega with guys going five wide that early in the race, there wasn't much I could do.

I'm glad to be back on a track where you can control your own destiny. Richmond is a really cool racetrack, my favorite racetrack. It's a beautiful facility, and a perfect size track at three-quarters of a mile.

You've got to have a good handling car, but if your car isn't exactly perfect you can still control your destiny a little bit and still race with people.

It's not too tricky. You've got to get into Turn 1 just a little bit loose because there's a long arch getting in. You get tight off of Turn 2, so you've got to be able to control that car.

Getting into 3 and 4 it's flatter and you've got a lot more room to chase the car up the track. The key is having a car that turns really good in the center of the track.

We've had that in the past in the Busch car. We dominated the spring race, but we had to pit late and knocked a fender in and couldn't get up to the front at the end.

Knowing we had the chance to win, that gives me and my team a lot of confidence going back there.

And keeping that confidence is key. What's happened the past two weeks isn't NASCAR. That's just racing. It can show you the highest of highs and drag you right to the lowest of lows.

It just makes you enjoy the good times a whole lot more.