Bowyer emerging from shadows with Chase bid (cont'd)

"We're going to break out some stuff, and just hope that it all works," Childress said. "Because you don't know until you put it on the track."

The solution won't come too soon for Bowyer, who's been plagued the last two race weekends by engine changes after qualifying that nullified a 26th-place starting position at Indianapolis and a 15th-place effort at Pocono, sending him to the rear of the 43-car fields for the starts.

Clint Bowyer

2007 results

Site	Finish	Points
Daytona	18	17
Fontana	6	6
Las Vegas	36	18
Atlanta	6	9
Bristol	8	8
Martinsville	11	7
Texas	16	6
Phoenix	22	9
Talladega	35	11
Richmond	9	10
Darlington	9	9
Charlotte	29	10
Dover	8	8
Pocono	10	8
Michigan	16	9
Sonoma	4	9
Loudon	37	11
Daytona	7	11
Chicago	10	10
Indianapolis	13	10
Pocono	8	10

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He rebounded to finish 13th at Indianapolis and eighth Sunday at Pocono. In the process Sunday, he ran in the top 10 for 76 of the race's 200 laps and led once, the eighth race in which he's done so this season.

His competitive level has got him and his Gil Martin-led crew anticipating the rest of the season.

"I think it's coming, but we can't start dead last every week," Bowyer said. "For two weeks in a row we've had motor trouble, and we've got to get to the bottom of that problem -- and I know that they will, because they're trying just as hard as everybody else."

Bowyer's team made a Saturday engine change at Indy and saved their day; it didn't seem that way Sunday morning when they changed engines in the hours before the Pocono event.

"It makes it hard, when you're adjusting on your car, according to the cars that you're around, and you're around different cars every time you get back on the track," Bowyer said. "Once we got up there [in the top 10] we were too tight. I wish I could have had the car I had in the middle of the race, because I think then I could have run with them and maybe gotten a top-five.

"We tried to make a track bar adjustment there, at the end but for some reason it was jammed up and wouldn't move, so we were pretty much stuck with what we had. But it was a good run nonetheless, and we made a good recovery from the engine failure after practice and Gil and the guys did a good job.

"Coming from the back and being as consistently as strong as we've been helps our confidence level and it says a lot about our team. But you can't win races starting dead last and we've just got to do better at that. We've been qualifying good all year long, but now that it's crunch time we've got to get to starting up there -- and we've got to get to running in the top five to keep contending for the Chase.

"I've just got to make that next step. I've got to get a little bit better in the car and we've got to get better as a team. And when we do that, I think we'll get into that next elite group of drivers -- what I'd consider the top-five front-runner's each and every week -- and we've just got to take that next step to be there."

If Bowyer, who has been as high as sixth in the standings this season and only as low as 17th, after he finished the Daytona 500 on his roof, continues to thrive he might not remain so indistinguishable after he makes the Chase.

And don't be surprised if Bowyer is still rumbling around racetrack infields in a golf cart, just soaking it all in.

"Oh yeah," Bowyer said of Saturday's sighting. "You know, that's what's fun because I'm still fairly unheard of and I can still stay under the radar if I want to. But fans are fans -- and I was a fan.

"I always thought it was neat when you'd see drivers driving around -- just to see 'em. And I think it's a shame that a lot more of these guys don't get out and interact [with the fans].

"I know it's hard and a pain in the butt but it wasn't too long ago there was a day in their lives -- in all of our lives -- when this was just a dream."