Around the Track: Daytona Int'l Speedway

Nextel Cup rookie Clint Bowyer maintained his position at 18th in the point standings after finishing 16th in his first road-course race at Infineon Raceway.

It was his best finish since he was 10th at Richmond International Raceway on May 6.

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Now he heads to back to Daytona International Speedway, where he began the season with a sixth-place finish in the Daytona 500.

Bowyer: Maybe Daytona will be just the place for us to get things turned back around.

Everybody has a little confidence going to the track knowing we ran well in the Daytona 500. It was a huge confidence builder for us as a new team, especially in equipment that didn't run the best last year.

As a driver, it gave me a lot of confidence, knowing I could stand up to these guys. I didn't think it was going to be easy, but it made me realize I can do it.

We started in the back because we didn't have a good run in the 150-mile qualifying race. We changed a lot on the car setup-wise and got it handling good.

Towards the end of the race we took the Dale Jarrett approach. We made a couple of runs up through traffic and then hung back a bit. When the time came to make a move late we had all the fenders on and everything was in good shape.

We hooked up with some good cars with Dale Earnhardt Jr. on the high side and drove right back to the top 10. Once we got there we got some help with Elliott Sadler.

That's what these restrictor-plate races are all about. If you give some of these guys some respect on the track, they don't forget that. When you need them they'll be there to help you -- hopefully.

Credit: Autostock

Clint Bowyer 2006 Nextel Cup stats Track St. Fin. Laps Status Daytona 37 6 203 running Fontana 32 14 251 running Las Vegas 20 15 270 running Atlanta 16 27 324 running Bristol 27 29 495 running Martinsville 42 22 496 running Texas 12 19 333 running Phoenix 8 5 312 running Talladega 15 40 16 crash Richmond 20 10 400 running Darlington 3 23 365 running Lowe's 15 19 399 running Dover 22 17 400 running Pocono 42 21 200 running Michigan 9 39 86 running Infineon 28 16 110 running • Complete stats, click here MORE ABOUT CLINT •   10 Questions: Clint Bowyer

It doesn't always work out that way. But generally, if you give drivers respect and have a fast racecar, they're going to go with you.

I learned a lot following Junior. He pulled me up there a long ways. I saw some of the ways he set people up and when he went and when he didn't.

Junior is one of the best there is at plate racing. He learned from THE best [in his dad, Dale Earnhardt]. Anybody would be a fool not to hook up with him any chance they get.

I didn't get to work much with my teammates, Kevin Harvick and Jeff Burton. All three of us had very fast cars, but in the 500 both of them were down at the bottom and I couldn't make my car work down there. It wanted to be up high.

For whatever reason, I couldn't go anywhere at the bottom, but I could make time up on top.

We talk about that in our strategy meetings. Your teammates, they're your best friends at Daytona. Those are the guys you want to work with the most if we can, but that's in a perfect world.

It doesn't always happen that way. You always want to help your teammate unless it's going to hurt you. That's the philosophy Kevin and I always had in the Busch races.

Unfortunately, when you get in situations where both of you aren't working well you've got to kind of hang the other one out to dry and go on.

You've just got to go with the group that works best for your car. If you get hooked up with the wrong car you're in trouble.

The 500 seemed like it took a long time to run and it took a lot of patience. It took forever to get to the last part of the race where you actually race.

Before that everybody was just tip-toeing around to get inside of 40 laps to go before you start the full-court press. It shouldn't be much different this weekend except that it is a hundred miles shorter.

I'm really just looking forward to having a good finish. It's been a while since we've had one. Usually, the car is capable of a top-10 finish. We've just been bitten by that bad-luck bug.

I don't really want to blame it on luck. I'm a firm believer that you make your own luck. We just can't seem to get the monkey off our back.

Last weekend at Infineon Raceway was a good example. I did pretty good to avoid hitting Kenny Schrader during that early wreck, but Casey Mears got in the back of me and it tore the whole back of the car off. On some of the high-speed parts of the track the car was a handful.

It didn't ruin our day. We were able to get a decent finish, but we had a lot better car than what we showed.

At least I'm finished with flying all over the country as we have the past three weeks with the Cup and Busch Series in different locations. All of us that have done that are glad that's over with. We put in a lot of miles and hours.

It's not so much tiring as you get behind on your every day life, everything from haircuts to getting things done around the house. People take for granted having time to do those things. You almost miss doing them.

It'll be nice to have both hotrods sitting at the same track and be able to walk a few hundred yards between the garages.