Around the Track: NHIS

Nextel Cup rookie Clint Bowyer finished 12th in last week's race at Richmond International Raceway to move up two spots in points to 16th.

Now he heads to New Hampshire International Speedway hoping to improve on a 27th-place finish two months ago that severely damaged his hopes of making the 10-driver field for Chase for the Nextel Cup.

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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 know what it's like to lose your privacy now.

I've had a film crew follow me around for two weeks documenting every move I make,

They did that with my teammate Kevin Harvick and his wife DeLana last season. They had a lot of fun with it and a lot of people enjoyed it, so hopefully people will enjoy what we do.

It's not easy. Obviously, you're aware the camera is there all the time. There's always two guys standing in front of you.

You get more comfortable with it as it goes and you start being more yourself. But the first couple of days you're constantly staring at the camera.

Nothing strange has happened, although I told them they've been everywhere else so they might as well go to the bathroom with me. I was going to make them go and tough it out. They turned me down on that one.

But stuff like this is good. People get to see what they don't see on the weekend, the appearances and obviously business race related and non-race related.

They get to see me the way I am. As you can see with my slippers on and my T-shirt, I don't dress up for them. This is what you get with me.

Kevin's was pretty funny with pranks and things. With his father-in-law that passed away earlier this year, they filled his car up with marbles.

One of the big things they filmed with me was the go-kart races we have on Wednesday nights. Some guys are starting to taking it pretty seriously and cheating quite a bit.

This week, it was all Harvick guys. They had it cheated up quite a bit. Their motors didn't quite sound like everybody else's. I'd say they got some stuff underneath the hood.

He hasn't been cheating in the Busch Series, though. He's got that big points lead because he deserves it. He's the secret behind that.

I'm going to run in my second Truck Series race of the year this weekend at New Hampshire. I'm looking forward to getting in the No. 47 truck because it's had a lot of success.

I led a lot of laps at Martinsville in my other race and it looked like we were going to win. We sat on the pole and had a lot of fun, but we finished seventh.

I'd like to race the trucks a lot more. They're a lot of fun and the series is very competitive with a lot of drivers that have been around a long time. You can get away with a lot more in the trucks.

It probably doesn't help me much for the Cup race, though. The trucks have a lot of drag on them aero wise and they handle quite a bit differently. But it's laps on the track, and anytime you can get that it helps.

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New Hampshire is a fairly flat track with multi-grade banking, really flat on the bottom. We had a really dominant car there in the spring with our Busch car. We were able to make a lot of passes, and when you have a car like that life is pretty easy.

It's a fun track. You can get runs on people and go on the outside of them or get a run on the bottom. You should see a lot of good racing there.

I'm looking forward to these last 10 races even though we missed the Chase. We're kind of on a roll with two straight good finishes.

That builds confidence and momentum and makes you more prepared to go to the next week.

It's nice to go to some of these tracks for the second time. You go with notes to fall back on and make yourself better.

If we'd run better on some of these tracks the first time around maybe this film grew would really have something good to follow us about.