Bowyer’s Sonoma second is special, but ‘we need a win in a big way’

RELATED: Race results | Full schedule for Daytona SONOMA, Calif. – An unexpectedly long green-flag run to close the books on the Toyota Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway was almost the recipe for a victory by Clint Bowyer. Almost. Instead, the Stewart-Haas Racing driver came home second, trailing only teammate Kevin Harvick in Sunday's Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race on the 1.99-mile road course. It was Bowyer's best finish this season since a runner-up at Bristol in April and his third top five. "Let's face it, short runs have never been my strong suit here," Bowyer admitted afterward, "the long runs are -- and thank God we got a long run there. I was out of tires; by the time I got done tearing the hell out of my car, I was out of tires." In a race that saw only six cautions, including two predetermined for stage breaks in the 110-lap race, no yellow flags interrupted the final 56 laps, save for a final caution on the final lap. If the long green flag run was in Bowyer's favor, the rock 'em, sock 'em start to the race was not. Just 22 laps into the event, the No. 14 SHR Ford was sliding off the track and already banged up. It was the result of stage racing, according to Bowyer, with teams weighing potential points versus track position and risks versus rewards. Sunday's stop was the first for the series on a road course this year, and the two stage breaks came after Lap 25 and Lap 50. "I mean, obviously this is the first crack at it," Bowyer said. "That's what lends to torn‑up race cars. It's such a short stage, there was some technical strategy that you've got to try to play and get track position, and then all of a sudden you're on the bad side of tires trying to hold guys off and you're blocking. RELATED: Allmendinger spin clips Bowyer "They're stacked up behind them, and it's just a recipe for disaster.  You know, the 47 (of AJ Allmendinger) … I just didn't see him and knocked the whole front end off our car. Somebody else I had a really good run on and I thought they were going to give it to me, and they didn't. Brad (Keselowski) spun me out. So yeah. One of them days." The damage wasn't enough to put the No. 14 team at risk but it did impact the aerodynamics, according to Bowyer. "When (the front end) was really flaring and there was a huge hole in it, it was plowing terribly bad in the high‑speed stuff," he said. "You know, it's just patience and try to take care of my stuff … just do all my normal stuff that's always gotten me to be good out here. … Just taking care of my stuff and babying it and not spinning the tires and being good on the end back of a run." It was the first 1-2 finish for Stewart-Haas since 2015 at Richmond. Teammates Kurt Busch finished seventh and Danica Patrick 17th. RELATED: Stewart on SHR's Sonoma success SHR co-owner Tony Stewart, the three-time series champion who drove the No. 14 until the end of '16, called Bowyer's run "one of the most aggressive, hard races of anybody all day." "I mean, to restart after the second stage 33rd and to battle back with no trick strategy or any gimmick to get him back up there, he drove from 33rd to second, I thought was really impressive," Stewart said. "I think realistically SHR was going to have four cars solidly in the top 10 today if they didn't have any drama. Pretty good effort for all four teams today." The result leaves Bowyer 11th in points, four ahead of 12th-place Matt Kenseth, who is also winless through the season's first 16 races. "Let's face it, yeah, we've got to win," Bowyer said. "We need a win in a big way, and today would have been a great win, but after everything that happened, I mean, to get second place is, I guess, really good, as a matter of fact."