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Owner looks to better team even after first Sprint Cup Series trophy

MOORESVILLE, N.C. — The Sprint Cup Series trophy, that prize Roger Penske sought for so long, is the newest addition to the sprawling Penske Racing shop. Murals of past greats like Mark Donohue, Bobby Allison and Rusty Wallace gaze down on NASCAR’s ultimate reward, claimed at last for the organization in 2012 by Brad Keselowski.

But that sterling silver cup is far from the only new element introduced for this season at the Penske facility, where the walls and floor are as gleamingly white as the dress shirts favored by the team’s executives. There is a new face behind the wheel of the organization’s second car, a new manufacturer providing support, a few new sponsors and support personnel sprinkled into new roles. In the wake of its first premier-series title, it’s clear that Penske did not stand pat.

“There’s something to be said for continuity,” Keselowski said Wednesday night, when the Penske shop was visited by the NASCAR Sprint Media Tour hosted by Charlotte Motor Speedway. “Continuity is good in moderation. At some point, you have to continue to improve.”


And the changes — though don’t let the team owner hear you call them that — were designed for that reason, to better an organization that was the best in NASCAR last year. After three drivers over two years of instability, Penske’s No. 22 car gets a new pilot in Joey Logano. The vehicle also has a new car chief and engineer. Greg Erwin, who made the Chase for the Sprint Cup three times with Greg Biffle at Roush Fenway, becomes crew chief on Sam Hornish’s title-contending Nationwide Series operation.

Sponsors Alliance Truck Parts and Shell/Pennzoil signed extensions, and Hertz came on board. And the organization changed manufacturers, shifting from Dodge to Ford in a transition Penske vice president Walt Czarnecki called “seamless at all levels.” As part of the move Penske closed its engine shop, reassigning about a third of those 60 employees to other roles within the race team and farming out about 15 others to the Roush-Yates company that now provides the team’s engines.

“We know what we did last year is not going to be good enough,” Keselowski said. “We have to step up to another level, we have to keep getting better. We know our competition is going to do the same. … We have that commitment to excellence to finding the next level. I know I do inside. I’m not happy being a guy who wins one championship and then goes away quietly. I want to win multiple championships. And I’m going to work as hard as I can to make that happen.”

Logano moves to a No. 22 car that’s been in constant flux with the departures of Kurt Busch and AJ Allmendinger over the past two seasons. At his new home, the expectations are clear. “While we know we will have wins next year with Joey,” said Heidi Massey-Bong, senior business advisor for NASCAR sponsorships at primary backer Shell/Pennzoil, “the expectation is that you will bring home Roger’s second Sprint Cup championship.”

No pressure, right? “Apparently … I’ve got a tough task already,” Logano said. “All she wants is a championship, so we’re on it.”

Penske, whose team also features 19-year-old Ryan Blaney part-time in the Nationwide Series, raved about his organization’s youth. Keselowski turns 29 next month. Logano, who has two career Sprint Cup race victories, is still only 22 even though he’s been a fixture at NASCAR’s national level for five years.

“When you think about it, when you average the two together (in) years of age, it gives us a tremendous runway going forward, because these drivers have 10 or 12 or 13 or 14 years,” Penske said. “If we can provide them with the right cars, it can be like Rick Mears. He spent his whole career with us. So I think the youth movement is here. These guys are exciting, they’re really motivated, and what I like about it is, (they’re) two young guys who need each other to be successful. So far the chemistry has been outstanding.”

So yes, to some degree it’s been an offseason of transition at Penske — although in team parlance, these aren’t changes, but additions. “I don’t think we really have made a lot of changes,” the team owner corrected. “I think basically we’ve added some expertise, and we’ve moved people up in the organization that are making a difference.”

And at his shop, Roger Penske has the final word. The more things change — or rather, the more things are added — the more things remain the same. Not even a Sprint Cup trophy alters that.

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Former Daytona 500 winner looks forward to less tandem drafting

CONCORD, N.C. — Dale Earnhardt Jr. has recorded some of the greatest moments of his career at Daytona International Speedway. But the crash he was involved in two weeks ago while testing at the restrictor-plate track does not rank among them.

Twelve cars were banged up in the first — and ultimately, only — drafting session at Preseason Thunder, the debut of NASCAR’s new Generation-6 Sprint Cup cars on Daytona’s high banks. The accident was sparked when Earnhardt made contact with the rear of Marcos Ambrose’s car, unaware that the bumpers on the more brand-identifiable vehicles wouldn’t match up as well as those on their predecessors.

“I thought long and hard, and that was probably the most embarrassed I’d ever been, in a long time,” Earnhardt said Wednesday during a stop at Hendrick Motorsports by the NASCAR Sprint Media Tour hosted by Charlotte Motor Speedway. “As long as I can remember.”

The emotion is understandable, given that Earnhardt is a Daytona 500 champion and regarded as one of the greatest restrictor-plate drivers of his era. His trademark has always been his ability to make something happen on his own, to swoop through the high line and roar to the front — which is how he nearly won the Great American Race in 2010, when he finished second to Jamie McMurray.

The next season, tweaks to the cars’ front ends and a resurfacing at Daytona brought about tandem drafting that made drivers more dependent on one another, and frustrated a competitor like Earnhardt more accustomed to taking control by himself. Now, though, what little drafting teams did at Preseason Thunder gives Earnhardt the impression that his fate might once again be in his own hands.

“The draft really reminds me of how we had the cars probably in ’06, ’07,” he said. “The cars pull up well, and you can work with other people even though the bumpers don’t line up exactly the way they used to the last couple of years. The way you help people is more how we used to do it six or seven years ago. … I’m really excited about that, and getting back to that sort of older style of plate racing.”

Also excited is crew chief Steve Letarte.

“I think the more you separate the responsibility or accountability to have a second car, and have two cars faster than the pack, I think is just going to work into Dale Jr.’s hands,” he said. That’s a far cry from what it was like in 2011, his first Speedweeks with NASCAR’s most popular driver, when the tandem drafting emerged.

“I remember the first year we showed up at Daytona … and he went out and made it look so easy in practice,” Letarte said. “I was like, ‘This is going to be the best Speedweeks ever. This is going to be amazing.’ Then about 15 minutes later, they hooked up nose-to-tail, and Pandora’s Box opened. … So what I saw down there in Daytona (at testing) gave me a completely rejuvenated feel about speedway racing, and I’m much more excited to go down there to Daytona than I have been for years.”

That optimism only made the testing crash more of a downer. Earnhardt didn’t feel the need to contact anyone afterward — he believes everyone involved understood it was an honest mistake — but that didn’t make it any easier to watch so many teams leave the test early, either because they sustained too much damage to continue or weren’t willing to draft anymore.

“Everyone was really excited to see how they drafted and how things went,” he said. “And after that accident, nobody wanted any more drafting. We didn’t, either. A lot if teams went home, and I realized it’s a new car, and everyone’s there to learn new things and uncover specifics about the car, and a lot of that was taken away from those teams because of the mistake and the accident. So I feel like I short-handed a bunch of guys at that test.”

But it didn’t dampen Earnhardt’s hopes for this season’s Daytona 500, particularly given how much more control individual drivers seem to have in the draft. Earnhardt finished second in the event last year behind Matt Kenseth.

“I feel pretty good about my abilities,” he said. “It didn’t really bother me as far as my confidence goes and how I’m going to drive and how I’m going to race out there. But I definitely don’t like being that guy that makes those type of things happen. I tend to not want to be in that conversation.”

Given that the testing crash could be a glimpse of the end of the Daytona 500, memories of Preseason Thunder probably won’t last for long.

“Give it another four or five weeks, and everybody will have forgotten about that crash,” Letarte said. “I’m sure there’ll be a lot more.”

Posted on by Holly Cain

With a new team and a new outlook, 2013 could be the year of the new Kurt Busch

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — If a peaceful, easy feeling can translate into 200-mph mojo, watch out for Kurt Busch and Furniture Row Racing in the 2013 NASCAR season.

Busch and team executives from the Denver-based Furniture Row team met with reporters Tuesday morning during the NASCAR Sprint Media Tour hosted by Charlotte Motor Speedway to preview the upcoming season. Their strategy, the group explained, is not to turn up the pressure and ramp up the work rhythm for their first full season together. Instead, Busch was directed to relax this offseason and have faith in the little-team-that-could.

“It was purposeful,’’ Furniture Row Racing General Manager Joe Garone explained with a smile. “We wanted to make it as peaceful as we possibly could for Kurt. And we’re able to do that being the owner and sponsor of the car. We can cancel sponsor appearances or commitments really easy and (team owner) Barney (Visser) was OK with that.

“We tried to keep Kurt as work-free as possible, let him relax a little bit. He feels real strong about the race team and has a real comfort level about what we’re doing at the shop to give him the cars he needs to go and win races. It was just a great offseason for him to relax.’’

It might seem counter-intuitive for an athlete to back off commitments and take an offseason pass, but in this case, both Busch and the team are betting the fresh start will ultimately pay big dividends.

Busch has spent the last few months skiing in the slopes near the team’s Denver base. He went to Jackson Hole, Wyo., for New Year’s Eve.

“I just took in the scenery and it was beautiful,’’ said Busch, looking comfortable and settled while leaning back into an oversized arm chair as reporters sized up his new situation and inquired about his mindset and chances for 2013.  

Whenever the opportunity arose during the media visit, Busch would turn the subject to his work bringing awareness and raising money for military causes — something he has passionately embraced.

Busch devoted a lot of time free time this off-season raising money for military causes — including $500,000 in a single Barrett Jackson auction event he helped organize — and visiting with military veterans “without a big crowd or bunch of television cameras.’’

“It’s so remarkable to see their internal drive to overcome their injury and their obstacles and it’s given me a lot of motivation to know when I’m having my rougher times it doesn’t hold a candle to what these guys have gone through,’’ Busch said.

And he has certainly endured his share of professional rough times since winning the 2004 Sprint Cup Series championship.

After claiming the sport’s big trophy with the Roush-Fenway Racing team, he moved to the legendary Penske Racing operation but parted ways unceremoniously following a tumultuous 2011 season.

Last year Busch drove for the small, lower-budget Phoenix Racing team intent on humbling his image and resurrecting his career.

Furniture Row hired Busch for the last six races of the 2012 season, convinced that a change in scenery and the right resources combined with Busch’s never-questioned talent would be the right move for everyone involved.

Busch promptly rewarded the decision with some of the best results the team had ever had, including three consecutive top-10 finishes to close out the season.

“It was great to be able to produce those results and it gives you that warm, fuzzy feeling that, ‘OK we’re going to be just fine,’” Busch said.

The team is certainly willing to see if “warm and fuzzy” works out for the famously temperamental Busch. Once prone to fuss and cuss at reporters, he seemed determined to show a kinder, gentler side.

No one has ever questioned his ability or desire, but much has been lost in the occasional headline-making missteps. He still believes people have a misconception about who he really is, the good he does and talent he possesses.

“All we’ve talked about is the competition, honestly,’’ Garone said when asked about any worries about Busch’s temper. “That’s what it’s all about right now. Anything we can do to make it better on the race track for him as a driver is where we’re at.

“We’re not wasting time worrying about it. It is something we’ve thought about obviously, especially from the sponsorship side. But again, the more we’ve gotten to know Kurt and who he really is, we’re really not thinking about it.

Busch offered up some insight on his own.

“Coach ‘K’ (Mike Krzyzewski) at Duke coaches through praise,’’ Busch explained. “If you miss a free throw, it’s, ‘OK, we’ll try another.’ Then you have (former Indiana Coach) Bobby Knight. If you miss a free throw, he gets all pissed off and throws a chair. That’s been my mentality over the years and it isn’t socially accepted.

“The fabric of our world is changing and that’s why a guy like Bobby Knight might have been phased out. That’s why I’ve had to learn from those situations.”

Judging from the vibe during this week during the team’s media session, Busch’s new attitude combined with an extraordinarily motivated and resourceful team may be just what he and the team need to achieve the kind of success both have sought.

“From my perspective, looking back at how the team has grown and (how) we’ve been able to acquire really good talent in our personnel, this year really is a pinnacle,’’ Garone said. “Everything has really come together. And Kurt, he truly ties it together.’’

There is a significant additional dose of confidence with a technical alliance established between Furniture Row and the legendary Richard Childress Racing program. Furniture Row is operating essentially as a “fourth RCR car.”

With the debut of the new Generation-6 car, a new team and a reinforced technical program, it is apparent that optimism is plenty as the team heads to Daytona Beach for the upcoming Speedweeks.

“When you have these scenarios where it’s new, fresh and exciting that’s when good things can happen,’’ Busch said.

“Barney Visser has been at this NASCAR game a long time and he needs to see his results now. And it’s time.

“We have everything we need to do our job.’’

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Hendrick offers no challenges, but drivers aware of stakes

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The Wednesday afternoon session of the 2013 Sprint Media Tour hosted by Charlotte Motor Speedway at Hendrick Motorsports saw four confident drivers take the stage to address the media, sporting a combined nine Sprint Cup titles between them.

The most self-assured? Team owner Rick Hendrick, planted right in the middle.

After making the claim at last year’s event that he’d have four cars in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup — and seeing his declaration come through — Hendrick emerged from the 2012 season a proud owner, but knows there’s more work to be done between Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kasey Kahne.

“As a whole, we’re more confident this year and we feel we have a shot to win this year. We’re as prepared as we’ve ever been,” Hendrick said. “(Last year), we fumbled the ball in the closing minutes of the game. We want to get back to the Super Bowl.”

Between the notion that Hendrick has more faith in his drivers this season, and his hunger to bring the franchise its first Sprint Cup championship since Johnson’s five consecutive titles from 2006-10, there is an added pressure to his team that other organizations might not encounter.

“Last year, he kind of shocked all of us in throwing down the gauntlet by saying all four cars would be in the Chase and that was a lot of pressure,” Gordon said. “Rick typically in the past is the guy that really didn’t make those kinds of demands, but when Rick asks for something, we all try to achieve it because he’s the kind of guy that you ask him for something, he’s going to make it happen.”

Certainly the burden on Gordon, who hasn’t had a Cup title to call his own in more than a decade (2001), weighs heavier than it might on Johnson.

“It doesn’t (add any extra pressure), because we feel (that we’ll have four cars in the Chase) and we believe that,” said Johnson, who finished third in the Cup standings in 2012. “Last year, when he went on the record in front of everybody and said that, that was a lot of pressure. I was waiting for him to drop the hammer this year and I think a couple of us were smiling on the stage wondering what he was going to say, but he let us off the hook there. I’m sure we’ll hear about it all year long in our meetings, and that’s great. You know we love to have that; it’s a kick in the pants to get things going.”

It was a bit of a different story for Johnson last season, however, as he acknowledged that there was “a pressure on me that I didn’t know existed until the streak ended.” Now he says he’s got a “clear mind” and he isn’t worried about the streak anymore.

Perhaps the forgotten man among the four heavyweight Hendrick drivers, Kahne figures to take the added pressure that comes with competing alongside the sport’s biggest stars to improve upon his best-ever Cup finish (fourth) and make himself a household name in his second season with the organization.

“I don’t think we were far off,” Kahne said. “But if we can keep that same drive and same competitiveness that we’ve had, hopefully we can get right back in that same situation and make a strong run at a championship this season.”

One thing that appears to be a constant throughout the team is the shared excitement in the Generation-6 car, best illustrated by Gordon’s one-liner of “Now, that’s a race car.”

When the comparison was given to Johnson that the Car of Tomorrow was like a suit that he took off the rack and it fit just right, Gordon quipped that his suit was about five sizes too big. Despite that previous perfect fit, Johnson is embracing the change.

“All in all, it’s a different animal,” he said. “There’s a lot more downforce and the aerodynamics are there. It’s a lot more forgiving (than the Car of Tomorrow).”

Earnhardt Jr., who hopes the change in body style gives him the edge to finish in the top 10 in the final points standings for just the second time in his sixth year with Hendrick, feels there’s going to be a learning curve to the Gen-6 car and admitted his crash at the Preseason Thunder testing at Daytona earlier this month was the most embarrassed he has ever been on a race track.

When the season wraps up in November and the winner of the Sprint Cup Series is hoisting the trophy over his head in celebration, don’t be surprised if it’s one of these four drivers, with the other three right behind him in the standings.

Just like Rick Hendrick drew it up.

Posted on by Staff Report

Watch Hendrick Motorsports media day live from 12:30-1:45 p.m. ET.

Hear what Rick Hendrick, Kasey Kahne, Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr., and others have to say about the upcoming NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season. Watch the Hendrick Motorsports live stream this Wednesday from 12:30-1:45 p.m. ET.

While you wait for the live stream to start, read these driver previews from NASCAR.com:

Jimmie Johnson

Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Jeff Gordon

Kasey Kahne

 

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Veteran driver has been second in points the last two years. Can a new team change the slump?

CONCORD, N.C. –- Elliott Sadler believes he can win the NASCAR Nationwide Series championship in 2013, and not just because the guy who won the last two titles is no longer in the series.

It’s because he’s with a Joe Gibbs Racing team that has a strong Nationwide record as well as one that boasts capable, talented teammates.

And it’s because Sadler, 37, has finished second the last two years and, quite frankly, he’s had enough of being the guy who almost won the title.

The JGR organization has “shown in the past the success they can have in the Nationwide Series,” Sadler said Jan. 22 during a late-evening stop on the annual Sprint Media Tour hosted by Charlotte Motor Speedway. “I really feel like our two teams, myself and Brian (Vickers), are going to be the two cars to beat. I think everybody else knows that, too.”

Sadler and Vickers are part of a retooled effort for JGR, although Vickers made one start for the team last year.

Sadler will pilot the No. 11 One Main Financial Toyota, driven last year by Brian Scott. Vickers will slide into the team’s No. 20 entry, one of two entries split among several drivers last season. The team’s No. 18 will likely see several drivers behind the wheel.

Chris Gayle, senior team engineer for the No. 18 Sprint Cup team with driver Kyle Busch, has been named crew chief for Sadler’s team.

While his team has been busy building cars, Sadler said he has been able to spend time with his family and enjoy the brief offseason. He has been on the track, testing one of the team’s Cup cars Jan. 23.

“They’ve just been building cars and getting ready for the upcoming season,” Sadler said of his Nationwide effort. “This time of the year, it’s all about getting your cars built and ready.

 “That’s what I told Chris –- if we need to be in the shop working on cars, let’s be in the shop. Let’s don’t miss days in the shop just to go test. I’ve been in a car enough in my career to know what I need to do when I get in a race car.”

After hitting a difficult stretch of seasons as a Cup driver, Sadler spent 2011 competing in Nationwide for Kevin Harvick Inc. While he failed to win, he did score 12 top-fives and 24 top-10 finishes and placed second in points behind champion Ricky Stenhouse Jr. 

The KHI effort was absorbed by Richard Childress Racing prior to 2012, and Sadler responded with four victories and another second-place points finish, once again trailing Stenhouse Jr., while at RCR.

At JGR, Joey Logano won nine times in just 22 starts last year for the organization. In all, JGR drivers have won 77 races in the series, as well as the 2009 driver’s title with Kyle Busch.

 “They’re tough to beat,” Sadler, a nine-time Nationwide winner, said of JGR.  “I really like what I see over there. I know we’ll have some stiff competition, but I feel good about Brian and myself as teammates. And I feel good about what we have to offer.

“I think we’ll be in good shape.”

Posted on by Brad Norman

New sponsor, Gen-6 car provide hope that 2013 can be different for EGR team

CONCORD, N.C. — Following a disappointing 2011 season in which Earnhardt Ganassi Racing drivers Juan Pablo Montoya and Jamie McMurray finished 21st and 27th, respectively, in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series points standings, frustrated team owner Chip Ganassi made wholesale changes.
 
At the beginning of 2012 in came a new technical director and team manager for the organization, and practically a brand-new team for Montoya — including a new crew chief, Chris Heroy.
 
The changes produced a frustratingly similar outcome. McMurray finished 21st in the Cup points standings, and Montoya was 22nd. Between them, the drivers posted five top-10 finishes in 36 races.
 
Despite the mirrored results, it was a calmer, more patient Ganassi that took center stage Wednesday morning during the NASCAR Sprint Media tour hosted by Charlotte Motor Speedway.

His message: When one makes such wholesale changes, it takes time for success to take root. With a brand-new Generation-6 car that has everyone in the shop raving, the team expects 2013 to be the start of a fruitful future.
 
“I would say last year’s changes were a wholesale paint job, if you will,” Ganassi said. “This year’s changes are more like the work of an artist as opposed to a painter. A little more fine-tuning type of adjustments — oftentimes you have to see some patina before you can actually see what the true color is of something. I think this year’s changes are much smaller and more refined than a year ago.”
 
Perhaps the biggest visible change this season for EGR comes with a new sponsorship deal. The organization has partnered with Cessna, which designs airplanes and is considered the industry leader in private aviation.
 
Cessna will sponsor multiple races on McMurray’s No. 1 Chevrolet SS. The sleek, black paint job was unveiled in a hangar at Concord Regional Airport, along with a company-made private jet and helicopter.
 
With that sponsorship locked up, and with the stability gained by keeping the core together, it’s EGR’s turn to take flight.

EGR hasn’t had a Cup driver in Victory Lane since McMurray won the Bank of America 500 in October 2010. That was also the season in which the driver won both the season-opening Daytona 500 and Brickyard 400, two of the Cup Series’ crown jewels.
 
Winning big races isn’t just a floating concept in the minds of EGR drivers and team personnel — it has happened in recent years. The knowledge that it can happen again is what drives the organization to stay patient with an approach it believes will work in the long run.
 

“I think if you go back and look at my comments from last year, I said that it wasn’t going to come right out of the box and be a big change,” McMurray said. “When you bring in so many new people, everyone has good ideas and it takes a while to go through all those ideas. And a lot of ideas don’t work, so you have to weed through those. For us, the last 10 races of the year were really good, not because of our results but because we spent those 10 races doing everyone’s ideas and really try to work through those and see what were going to be big needle-movers.”
 
Some of the big needle-movers were concepts that didn’t concern last year’s teams or last year’s cars.
 
When it became clear that neither McMurray nor Montoya would challenge for a spot in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, the teams did the next logical step — start thinking about 2013.
 
Knowing that figuring out a brand-new car was a massive undertaking, and that every driver on every Cup team would face the same set of challenges, work on the 2013 season began in earnest in the summer of 2012.
 
“We’ve kept the personnel stable and we know we have good people. That was really our choice, to focus on the car,” said Heroy, who is 35 and entering his second season as Montoya’s crew chief. “We went to the test tracks, ironed all that stuff out and started to make our gains there.”
 
Both drivers and Heroy said they were pleased with offseason testing at Daytona International Speedway and Charlotte. At least one driver was consistently near the top 10 in practice times at the Preseason Thunder, with Montoya having the best showing on the final day. With the field reduced to 15 drivers, Montoya was fifth on the speed chart in the final practice run.
 
The Colombian was also 11th in the more robust field of 33 during testing at Charlotte Motor Speedway
 
“We’re going testing at the same places where, last year we were struggling. Now we’ve got one of the fastest cars,” Montoya said. “Things that are completely outrageous, just bad luck, were happening to us in 2012. It was just a rough year for everybody. The good thing is, it makes everybody work harder and become more focused. I think it’s going to pay off.”

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Michael Waltrip Racing driver expects to avoid sophomore slump

CONCORD, N.C. — On the morning after his victory last fall at Charlotte, he woke up with a driveshaft in his bed. After he was wrecked by Jeff Gordon a few weeks later at Phoenix, he sprinted though the garage area itching for a fight. So leave it to Clint Bowyer to scoff at the notion that the runner-up funk that’s engulfed a few of his predecessors will apply to him.

“Everybody keeps warning me about this second-place hangover,” he said Tuesday. “I’ve had a lot of hangovers. You can fight through them. I’m ready for it.”

That’s no surprise coming from Bowyer, as live a wire as there is in the Sprint Cup Series and a driver whose talent is sometimes eclipsed by the fury of activity that always surrounds him. That was certainly the case during the Michael Waltrip Racing portion of the NASCAR Sprint Media tour hosted by Charlotte Motor Speedway, when Bowyer held court on a variety of topics — a few of them actually pertaining to the fact that he almost won the championship last year.

Indeed, Bowyer surged to a surprise second in final points last season, taking advantage of Jimmie Johnson’s late-season unravelling to finish 39 points behind champion Brad Keselowski. At the time, it was so under the radar, not even he was aware of it. Exiting the race car after the finale at Homestead, he was told he had finished second — which he thought referred to the race, where he trailed only the winner Gordon.

“I was like, ‘I saw that, great point there,’” Bowyer recalled. “And he said, ‘No, in the points.’ I was like, ‘What?’”

To be sure, some others who watched the Keselowski-Johnson endgame unfold were wondering the same thing. But that’s Bowyer, a wide-open former dirt track racer whose spotter and crew chief often communicate on a separate radio channel to ensure their easily-distracted driver doesn’t lose focus. His car owner once referred to him as “Mr. ADD.”

No question, Denny Hamlin and Carl Edwards each fell into a malaise after coming up just short of the title. But there’s perhaps no competitor better suited to avoid dwelling on such a thing, precisely because Bowyer doesn’t dwell on anything for very long.

“Here’s the thing — it’s either going to happen, or it’s not. I guess if it does happen, what are you going to do about it? You’re going to work hard to try to correct it, no different than they did,” he said, referring to the last two drivers to finish second in the championship race.

“I’m not going to sit here and tell you that it’s going to happen. I’m going to tell you why I don’t think it’s going to happen, and that’s … just being able to continually improve (like we did) all the way to Homestead last year. Those are the things that I see. There’s still room to improve. We’ve improved through the offseason from what we had, through preparation for those tests, the communication at the tests, unloading with a fast car. It seems like each of those guys had a piece of the puzzle gone, like they’d lost a guy or something like that. We were able to keep everybody intact, and aim to do so.”

Besides, the 33-year-old Kansan has more entertaining subjects to talk about, like food, friends and fitness training (or lack thereof). Mark Martin, the ageless wonder who once authored a book called “Strength Training for Performance Driving,” is helping MWR design its new gym.

“We’re looking forward to getting our new place built so we can watch you lift stuff,” Waltrip ribbed Martin before the media tour crowd.

How much will Bowyer use it?

“Probably never,” he said. “Weights are heavy. (Martin) told me he started working out like in his 40s. I’ve got some time to go yet. Last I noticed, that steering wheel is not near as heavy as those weights are. When that happens, I guess I’ll go to lifting weights.”

Besides, Bowyer has other things to do — like cook, which he did Monday night. “Yeah, surprised me, too,” he said. The menu consisted of steak and macaroni and cheese. “Ask Mark Martin if he was eating steak and macaroni and cheese last night,” Bowyer said of his teammate, who maintains a strict diet to complement his fitness regimen. “We did have asparagus. I didn’t cook that. That’s way too healthy for me.”

Bowyer handled steak sent to him by friend Jimmy John Liataud — yes, he of the sandwich shop of the same name — who advised the driver to sear it in a cast iron pan and cook it in the oven on very high heat.

“Now, I’m from Kansas,” Bowyer said. “We’re pretty simple folk. We grill our meat.” He even double-checked the recipe with another friend — this one in the cattle business, who demanded to know why he’d ever cook a steak like that.

But Bowyer did it anyway, in the process showing off a little adaptability, which will be on display once again this weekend when he competes in the Rolex 24 at Daytona Grand-Am race.

“It’s a long time, 24 hours,” he conceded. “I have enough trouble concentrating for three and a half hours.”

Bowyer said it will be his only appearance in sports cars, and he’s doing this race because team co-owner Rob Kauffman — who will be a co-driver along with Waltrip, Bowyer and Rui Aguas — requested it.

“Rob does so much for us,” Bowyer said of Kauffman, who owns an investment firm. “It’s like this — if Rob asks you anything, the answer is usually yes. I don’t care what’s in front of it, or what you’re doing.”

Which is why Bowyer will find himself behind the wheel of a Ferrari 458 in the GT class this weekend — that is, if he can keep out of the way of faster cars. “There’s no rules of the road, that’s the biggest problem,” he said. “… They just say, kind of hold your line and they’ll figure it out. I don’t like figuring things out when a car is 50 mph faster than you. I want to know exactly what’s going to happen. I can tell what’s going to happen if I’m going faster than them. But they come up on you — I don’t know who that guy is, or what he’s thinking, or how tired he is at 5 o’clock in the morning.”

Clearly, Bowyer will be in a much more comfortable atmosphere when he returns to Daytona next month for Speedweeks — by which time his runner-up championship finish last season will probably seem like a distant memory. But even at the 24-hour race, among exotic cars and drivers with unfamiliar last names, he still promises to bring his personality along with him. The Grand-Am boys may not know what hit them.

“Should I wear cowboys boots in the Ferrari?” Bowyer asked. “I think that would be cool. With my firesuit tucked in.”