MORE: Stewart announces that 2016 will be final season in NASCAR’s top series

KANNAPOLIS, N.C. — Stewart-Haas Racing unveiled Clint Bowyer as Tony Stewart‘s successor Wednesday, shedding light on the plan to replace the three-time NASCAR premier-series champion upon his retirement at the end of next season.

Bowyer said when it became evident that there was a vacancy at Stewart’s No. 14 ride, he didn’t hesitate. “They didn’t have to call me,” Bowyer said with his patented grin.

Though the spotlight shone brightest Wednesday on Stewart, one of NASCAR’s most popular drivers and a surefire bet for first-ballot induction into the NASCAR Hall of Fame, Bowyer’s piece of the puzzle provided an extra source of intrigue for the four-car organization’s future. The news also provided Bowyer with an opportune landing place after rocky recent weeks with his current team, Michael Waltrip Racing.

“I don’t think I got fired; it just went away, and somehow you landed in a way better situation,” Bowyer said to laughter in Wednesday’s news conference at HaasF1’s sprawling new headquarters. “Do you ever hear that term when you fall in a pile of cow manure and come out smelling like roses? That’s exactly what this is for me.”

Bowyer’s timetable for inheriting the No. 14 Chevrolet ride in 2017 includes a one-year gap in his driving duties. He shied away from giving specifics regarding his 2016 plans, despite speculation he would shift to the two-car HScott Motorsports outfit for a one-year stint in the interim.

Bowyer hinted that next season’s part of the equation could become clearer by this weekend at Dover International Speedway.

“Yeah, there’s going to be some more announcements later in the week as far as where we’re going for next year,” Bowyer said. “But for this announcement, why I’m here today is to announce the long‑term future plan for me.”

Stewart initially joked that his handpicked selection for the No. 14 Chevy was retired driver “Handsome” Harry Gant, the 75-year-old veteran whose last season in NASCAR was 1994. Besides a tongue-in-cheek comment about Gant’s and Bowyer’s common thread with “immaculate hair,” Stewart applauded the team’s newest driver, saying that his hero and friend — racing legend A.J. Foyt — would approve of the hire.

“You know, everything in racing is timing, and the opportunity to get somebody like Clint Bowyer, I mean, that’s when you know you seize the opportunity. We’re probably going to have a hard time working together and communicating with each other. We probably won’t have any fun racing,” Stewart said with trademark sarcasm. “It’s the right time, it’s the right opportunity, and when somebody in a scenario like Clint’s this year came about, you jump on those opportunities, and you know that timing is everything.”

In a compelling contrast, the details for Bowyer’s future emerged as the fate of his campaign in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup playoffs simultaneously faced a crossroads just six miles away, where Michael Waltrip Racing was appealing P4-grade penalties against Bowyer’s No. 15 team at the NASCAR Research & Development Center.

RELATED: MWR penalty upheld in appeal

Bowyer qualified for this year’s Chase on the basis of his rank in the Sprint Cup driver standings, but the team opened with a thud in the Chicagoland opener. Penalties stemming from a pre-race infraction for improper track-bar and suspension mountings essentially negated the team’s 19th-place finish, digging a large deficit in the opening three-race Challenger Round.

The 25-point penalty was upheld Wednesday by a three-member panel, keeping Bowyer last in the 16-driver postseason field with bleak odds of advancing from the Chase’s opening round this weekend at Dover International Speedway.

The appeal is another tipping point in Bowyer’s final days with MWR. The team announced Aug. 19 that it would shut its doors at the end of the season, granting Bowyer his release and freeing him to seek employment elsewhere. That freedom resulted in landing nicely on his feet, claiming what he called “one of the best rides ever in the history of the sport.”

“I mean, this is a champion’s seat that I’m filling, so that being said, this is an unbelievable opportunity,” Bowyer said. “Just like I said earlier, to think of that door opening, and holy cow, the timing couldn’t have been any better for myself. Just somebody was looking after me.”

Bowyer has eight victories in NASCAR’s premier series — five with Richard Childress Racing, where he drove from 2006-2011, and three with Michael Waltrip Racing (2012-2015), all coming in his first year with the team. Bowyer’s 2012 campaign remains his most successful with a second-place result in the final Sprint Cup standings.

But besides the performance and accomplishments, Bowyer also brings an affable, cooperative element to the mix of personnel and personalities at Stewart-Haas. Though Bowyer said Wednesday that he would miss racing against Stewart — his future boss, but also his friend — he also looked forward to building chemistry in the next stage of his stock-car racing career.

“That being said, damn, I’m glad that you decided to retire and open this seat up for me,” Bowyer said to Stewart, “but you know, it’s just all about people, it’s all about culture for me, and I think the fit factor couldn’t be any better.”