It was a milestone afternoon for Clint Bowyer in the Camping World Trucks O’Reilly Auto Parts 250 Saturday at Kansas Speedway. Bowyer led five times for 124 of the 167 laps to win his first NASCAR race at Kansas Speedway, a track located in his home state about 90 miles from his hometown of Emporia, Kan.
Bowyer crossed the finish line 1.695 seconds ahead of Johnny Sauter, who moved into the points lead in the Camping World Truck Series, replacing Cole Whitt. Todd Bodine was third, James Buescher came in fourth and Joey Coulter passed Kyle Busch on the final lap to finish fifth. Today’s truck race at Kansas Speedway was the 400th race in the history of the NASCAR truck series.
Several sources reported that team owner Richard Childress and Kyle Busch were involved in a physical altercation in the garage area after the race. Childress, ostensibly not happy with the hard racing between Busch and his driver, Joey Coulter, in the final stages of the race, went after Busch, getting him into a headlock and punching him several times. Busch went to the ground, placing himself in a defensive position, but Childress attacked him again when he tried to get up, according to the sources.
Bowyer had finished second in a Sprint Cup race at Kansas in 2007 and second in a Nationwide Series race a year later, but he had never taken the checkered flag at the race venue he considers his home track. Bowyer has run three NASCAR races in the truck series this year and 11 total in his career.
"We’ve come close here," Bowyer said in victory lane after the race. "We’ve had good runs here. But we just haven’t been able to seal the deal. To finally be able to do a burnout on the frontstretch in front of that crowd is big, man."
Bowyer would love nothing better than to make it a weekend sweep with his first Sprint Cup win in five previous starts at Kansas on Sunday in the STP 400. "I want to win a Cup race here bad," Bowyer said. He will have to do it from the 27th position on the starting grid, however.
"This place means a lot to me," the Emporia native said. "I watched this place being built. I dreamed of being able to race here in anything, and to be able to roll into victory lane."