LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. -- For sure, Clint Bowyer wouldn't have slit his wrists if Carl Edwards had overtaken him to win the 2008 Nationwide Series championship, but he wouldn't have known what to do with himself either.

Bowyer blew out a deep breath and just laughed when asked the question Friday morning at the ESPN Club in the Walt Disney Resort, on the eve of Saturday night's Nationwide Series fete in the Tuscan Ballroom at the Portofino Bay Hotel in Orlando, Fla.

Bowyer vs. Edwards

2008 N'wide stats

	Bowyer	Edwards
Wins	1	7
Top-fives	14	19
Top-10s	29	22
Poles	0	4
Avg. Start	10.5	8.0
Avg. Finish	8.3	9.5
LL Finish	31	29
DNFS	0	2

• 2008 Stats Bowyer | Edwards

"No, I wouldn't have been able to live with myself, and it's funny you ask that question," Bowyer said. "My older brother and I were laughing about that, flying down here, when he said, 'dude that really would have sucked if you wouldn't have won [the championship].'

"But it would have. To lead that thing the way that we did, with a comfortable 200-point margin for most of the season and right there in the last month, the panic came on and it was nerve-wracking.

"But we were in a situation where we had that 200-point lead, and that was good, but it wasn't good enough. If we'd had a catastrophic day, like we did at Memphis, then it opens the door and it puts him [Edwards] right back in the game."

Bowyer, who led Edwards by 207 points with seven races to go, lost 186 points the last seven weeks of the season, particularly when Edwards won three of the last four races and finished second in the other, on his way to seven total victories.

But Bowyer rallied in the Ford 300 finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway for a fifth-place finish. And while he was a bit disappointed to win only once and garner only 14 top-five finishes, he admitted his stellar 29 top-10s in 35 starts secured the title. It proved Childress' contention about Bowyer.

"Number one, he's got car control from being on dirt tracks and that type of racing," Childress said of what attracted him to hire Bowyer. "But I think it's, to be a champion and to be what it takes to be successful in this sport -- the toughest motorsport I think in the world -- is you've got to have heart.

"And he has heart, and he knows when to dig, and I [saw] that even at the first races I watched him run. You've got to have heart, and he has it."

And Bowyer's hearty first national series title marked the latest achievement for Richard Childress Racing's Nationwide Series program, which with its fifth championship in the last six years -- two drivers' and three owners' -- has been the best in the series.

It was particularly satisfying for Childress, who previously had celebrated his last drivers' title, which came with the owners' honors, in 2006 with Kevin Harvick.

“

At the end of the year, to be able to sit back and enjoy all of the hard work that you've been busting your butt all season for -- to see it finally having a purpose, and to be able to look up on your mantle and see a championship trophy is pretty cool.

”

-- CLINT BOWYER

"I can't say enough about Clint Bowyer," Childress said. "I see in him what I've seen in some other drivers that were great and I think he's got everything it takes to be the great one. I'm really proud for him and his family. It's neat to see a family atmosphere, his brothers and his mother and father and everybody around, and I'm just really proud of it."

It gave Bowyer a good going-away present to the series where he's raced full-time for three seasons and finished second and third in 2005 and 2006, respectively, before he raced part-time in 2007 while contending for the Cup Series rookie of the year title.

Bowyer had become the "typical Clint Bowyer," that is, smiling a lot, immediately after the Homestead finale sealed his 21-point margin on Edwards. And it only continued on Friday when he said he couldn't imagine having a better job than he did.

"What's not a job about what I do?" he said, rhetorically. "It's the racing, because that's not a job, it's a passion."

And that made Bowyer's championship realization, after less than a week, just as simple.

"Achieving your goal is the immediate benefit of winning this championship," Bowyer said, his smile never quitting. "Just being able to heave a big sigh of relief, because I'd achieved one of my biggest goals, was a big part of it.

"I'd won championships, several of them, but I enjoyed having that goal to chase after all year, because if you're not racing for a championship or racing for points, you're just racing to go out and win the race. That's a lot of fun to do, but it's fun to be able to race for a championship.

"And at the end of the year, to be able to sit back and enjoy all of the hard work that you've been busting your butt all season for -- to see it finally having a purpose, and to be able to look up on your mantle and see a championship trophy is pretty cool."

If Bowyer looked at Memphis Motorsports Park, the 33rd race of the season where he battled an ill-handling car all day and finished 16th, three laps down to Edwards, who won and gained 80 points; as his near-Waterloo; Phoenix one race later saved his championship.

Out west, Bowyer was involved in an early accident, damaged his car, lost a lap but through teamwork, persevered and finished fifth. Rather than losing another big chunk of points, he lost only 35; and he and Childress agreed the difference was critical.

"I looked at [Phoenix] as something that wins championships -- I really believe that," Bowyer said, obviously after-the-fact, but accurately. "We were down and out. Man, that could have put us out and lost this thing very easily -- but the guys kept their cool; we bounced back, battled back and got a top-five out of something that I didn't think we couldn't be in the top 10 with."

"Phoenix, I think was probably the turning point for winning the championship," Childress said. "Those guys got in there and dug and dug, and that car was killed in the front end. If we ever had luck on our side, it was that day [because] we didn't lose a radiator.

"Clint drove it back to the front, and a couple more laps might have won the race with it. I think that was a big turning point in winning the championship, being able to come [to Homestead] instead of being 20 points ahead, being [56 ahead]."

Bowyer said the championship was payback to his parents, who underwrote his early racing career on local dirt tracks around his Emporia, Kan., home; and to team owner Childress, who gave a Midwest kid a chance after seeing him excel in an ARCA race that Bowyer attempted, almost as a last-gasp attempt at getting noticed.

"It's just incredible [to win this Nationwide championship]," Bowyer said. "It makes you think back to how it all started, you know, working in a body shop in Kansas and trying to figure out what was the next move. You're out of money, your parents gave up three retirements to get you where you're at, and it was kind of the end of the road.

"Out of nowhere, my cell phone rings and it was Richard [Childress]. It was just unbelievable to think back how my career started with the [ARCA] race in Nashville and then winning my first race in the Nationwide Series at Nashville.

"To be able to win our first championship with Dan [Deeringhoff, crew chief] and all the guys on the No. 2 Chevrolet and all our partners, very proud to be able to do this for Richard -- it kind of feels like giving back for taking a chance on me, and finally it paid off.

"I'm just really proud of everybody at RCR -- we're strong. It's fun to be able to roll through RCR as a racecar driver and know the guys and know that they're pulling for you and happy that you're racing for them. That's what Richard has formed there -- a family atmosphere where a guy can go there and feel like family."

In the end beating Edwards, who capped the season finishing second in both Sprint Cup and Nationwide points and winning six of the last eight races in both series meant the most for Bowyer.

"Carl is a hell of a racecar driver, there's no way of getting around it," Bowyer said. "I'm damn proud to be able to beat a racecar driver like that and a team and an organization [Roush Fenway Racing] like he's got behind him. It says a lot about ours and the people that surround me.

"Carl, he's been a long-time friend from those [beginning] days, and I think it's a true testament to the stepping stones of NASCAR. We both came from the Weekly Racing Series, went through the Regional Touring Series and he went to the Truck Series. Luckily I got the right phone call and went to the [Busch] Series. It's fun to be able to come back here, what -- five, six years later and be able to race each other for championships. It really is fun."

At least it was, once that 21-point margin was secure.