Bowyer Snaps Winless Streak with Martinsville Victory

Originally written for CLNS Media.

Clint Bowyer won the STP 500 on Monday afternoon from the Martinsville Speedway.

The race, originally scheduled for Sunday afternoon, was postponed due to a snow storm in the Virginia area.  That forced NASCAR to run most of the Truck Series race and the entire Cup Series race on Monday.

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Bowyer’s victory snapped a 190-race winless streak that dated back to his victory at Charlotte in October 2012. 

Since Bowyer moved to Stewart-Haas Racing in 2017, he has seen his teammate Kevin Harvick run up front every week while Bowyer ran mid-pack.  Bowyer said watching his teammates succeed helped light a fire within him and his team.

“It’s hard to watch your teammates…have all that success,” Bowyer said.  “It still fuels that fire, and it can either be a detriment or a positive attraction, and for us, it just made us want to get to Victory Lane.”

Bowyer dominated on Monday, and led a race-high 215 laps.  Bowyer said he knew his car was fast from the beginning of the weekend.

“Something just felt right about today,” Bowyer said.  “Our weekend, all four cars were fast.”

Kyle Busch had a strong car and ran up front throughout the race, but he couldn’t get to Bowyer to make a move for the win.  Instead, he collected his third second-place finish of the season.

Busch said he was starting to get frustrated with running so well without a victory.

“We’ve been that close each and every week, so we’re right there, we’re knocking on the door,” Busch said.  “We’ve been the closest thing to everybody each and every week.”

Unofficial results:

1. Clint Bowyer

2. Kyle Busch

3. Ryan Blaney

4. Martin Truex Jr.

5. Kevin Harvick

6. Joey Logano

7. Alex Bowman

8. AJ Allmendinger

9. Chase Elliott

10. Brad Keselowski

11. Kurt Busch

12. Denny Hamlin

13. Paul Menard

14. Aric Almirola

15. Jimmie Johnson

16. Kyle Larson

17. Erik Jones

18. Daniel Suarez

19. Ryan Newman

20. William Byron

21. Michael McDowell

22. Ty Dillon

23. Chris Buescher

24. Kasey Kahne

25. David Ragan

26. Jamie McMurray

27. Cole Whitt

28. DJ Kennington

29. Ross Chastain

30. Austin Dillon

31. JJ Yeley

32. Matt DiBenedetto

33. Trevor Bayne

34. Darrell Wallace Jr.

35. Harrison Rhodes

36. Gray Gaulding

37. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

38. Landon Cassill

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