Top-5 finish at Atlanta would be first for Clint Bowyer

Clint Bowyer is 40/1 to win at Atlanta on Sunday night

CORNELIUS, N.C. — The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series travels to Atlanta Motor Speedway for a Labor Day weekend race. And Clint Bowyer and his team know that there’s still work to be done with two races left before the field for the 2014 Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup is set.

Despite a 17th-place finish Saturday night in Bristol, Bowyer actually put more distance between himself and the 17th-place car (the first car outside of the 16 field Chase). The Michael Waltrip Racing driver is currently 15th, five points ahead of 16th and 31 ahead of 17th.

With 325 laps ahead of him Sunday night at the high-speed 1.5-mile oval, Bowyer knows that with a little hard work, a good finish is doable for his No. 15 SpeedDigital.com Toyota but a win is preferable.

What is your outlook these next two races?
“Well it’s crunch time. We are in it (the Chase) now but we’re not locked in and that’s the goal. We just have to go out and run our race. Like I’ve said, you can’t have any mistakes. Last weekend we got back there a little bit and got caught up in someone else’s mess. We can’t do that these next two races. I like Atlanta. We were really good there last year. We were leading and then we had an issue. We’ll see. A win is what we are looking for but right now every point counts too.”

CHASSIS
Chassis No. 816 serves as the primary chassis for Bowyer at Atlanta. This is a new chassis. Chassis No. 804 serves as the back-up chassis and finished 12th at Darlington and 15th at Bristol earlier this year.

ATLANTA STATS
No top-five and five top-10 finishes in 13 starts
Completed 4,027 of 4,252 laps (94.7%) and has led 114 laps
Average start 15.7 and average finish 19.8
Two DNFs (did not finish) – Sept. 2013 and 2011

Race	Start	Finish	Laps	Status	Led
2006-04	16	27	324/325	running	0
2006-33	18	25	322/325	running	0
2007-04	15	6	325/325	running	2
2007-33	26	6	329/329	running	0
2008-04	7	6	325/325	running	52
2008-33	5	20	324/325	running	0
2009-04	21	6	330/330	running	0
2009-25	20	29	323/325	running	0
2010-04	18	23	341/341	running	4
2010-25	14	7	325/325	running	0
2011-25	2	36	243/325	crash	8
2012-25	30	27	324/327	running	0
2013-25	12	39	192/325	engine	48

-Michael Waltrip Racing