DARLINGTON, S.C. -- Clint Bowyer skipped the second day of testing at Lowe's Motor Speedway on Tuesday, jetting instead to his hometown of Emporia, Kan., to host a charity golf tournament. With so much focus on Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin in the aftermath of last week's race at Richmond, Va., nobody seemed to miss the man who actually won it.

That's the way it is this week for Bowyer, the affable Richard Childress Racing driver who last Saturday night became perhaps the most overshadowed race winner in modern NASCAR history. This weekend at Darlington Raceway, there's still plenty of interest in Hamlin's late failure and the crash between Earnhardt and Busch. And then there's the race winner, walking through the garage area almost unbothered, lost in all the attention focused on three other drivers he beat.

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I think every time, you always wonder, when is the next one going to happen? That's a constant worry, but it is what it is.

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CLINT BOWYER

And that's just fine with him. "I know where the trophy is, and I know where the money went," he said Friday before practice for the Dodge Challenger 500, "so that's all that matters to me."

He should be used to it by now. After all, just as Bowyer's victory last Saturday night was eclipsed by the actions of three other drivers, so has RCR's steady but relatively quiet season been obfuscated by the rise of Joe Gibbs Racing and the decline -- in some minds, at least -- of two-time defending champion Hendrick Motorsports. This weekend, there's only one team with three drivers in the top five in championship points. And it's owned by Childress, who knows a thing or two about how to win titles.

"I learned a long time ago, don't let what everybody talks about bother you. If I did, I'd have been crazy years ago," he said. But still: "It's a little frustrating. Everybody wants to talk about two of the big organizations, and we've been there for the last couple of years. I think we're making a statement that we can be a contender. We were a contender last year for the championship with Clint up until about three races to go. We want to be in that position again, to be a contender for the championship."

Bowyer took a step in that direction last Saturday night, taking the lead when Earnhardt and Busch spun with three laps left in regulation, and scoring his second career victory on NASCAR's top level. Sure, he took advantage of others' misfortune. But he doesn't care. As he wrote in his daily diary for the local newspaper: Want to know who has the trophy from Richmond, come by his house and take a look.

"It was a gift, but man, I'll take it," he said. "I've been in a lot of situations over the last two or three years, thought we could win a race and for whatever reason something went bad. So it feels good to roll into Victory Lane and get that monkey of our backs for the first time this year."

Few race wins are more special to a driver than their first, as was evident by the raucous Victory Lane celebration touched off by Bowyer's dominating performance at New Hampshire last season. But career win No. 2 holds plenty of meaning, too. It means that a driver has separated himself from the multitude of others to win just once. It means the first one wasn't a fluke. It quiets, for a little while at least, that incessant wondering over when the next one will come.

"I've won 20, and there's a doubt in my mind whether I can do it again," teammate Jeff Burton said. "That's just how this sport is. Obviously being a multi-time winner means a lot more than being a one-time winner. Clint appreciates a great deal that he's been able to win twice on this level, and I think he appreciates how hard it is to do it. I don't think Clint left Richmond thinking, 'Everything's perfect, and now I'm going to go win me 50 more.' I think Clint has a real good understanding of how things work, and that it's real hard to win races, and being in the right place in the right time, and all those things add up. I know the whole company felt great about Clint Bowyer and the 07 team winning, and we're all smart enough to know there's a lot of challenges ahead. But certainly that second win is really special."

Bowyer can relate. "I think every time, you always wonder, when is the next one going to happen? When is the next one going to happen?" he said. "That's a constant worry, but it is what it is."

Childress has no doubts that the next one will come. "I think to really make your mark, you've got to get up to four or five wins," the car owner said. "One win, a lot of drivers in here have one. Some have two that have been running a lot longer than Clint. But I think you'll see Clint win more races before the year's over."

But are the point standings an accurate indication of RCR's strength? While the team's drivers stand first, second and third in laps completed -- with Burton being the only driver in the series to have finished every lap -- the highest RCR driver in laps led is Bowyer, in eighth position at 4.5 percent. And as was the case at the end of last season, they haven't compiled race wins at the same rate as some of their competitors. There's no multiple winner at RCR yet this season, with the three drivers sharing a pair of triumphs between them. But the team did place all three of its drivers in the Chase last season, and is on track to do the same thing again this year.

"We know we have to be better," Childress said. "We've won two races this year, and if you look at where some of the other big teams are, the thing that gets me is, everybody forgets where we were last year with our teams and where we are this year, and we're still gaining, But we are there. It's kind of like playing golf. You can't have two or three birdies and then a bunch of balls in the water."