Clint Bowyer – You can’t win in NASCAR without cheating

Clint Bowyer

While plenty of people in the industry tap dance around the idea of cheating to win in NASCAR, the always entertaining and outspoken Clint Bowyer isn’t afraid to call this what it is: cheating. And in an interview with longtime NASCAR reporter Jeff Gluck of The Athletic, Bowyer explained how cheating is basically the job description.

In the Q&A, it doesn’t seem like Bowyer hesitated when he said, “Hell, no," after being asked if he’d want to know about a purposefully illegal part of his car. Like so many other misdeeds, he said the fewer people who know about whatever it is, “the better off you’re going to be."

The No. 14 Ford driver praised the work of crew chiefs while elaborating on why cheating is blatantly part of the job. More via The Athletic:

“That’s the craziest thing about it — it is cheating, right? It’s whatever. But it’s what they do for a living. If they don’t, you cannot have success. If you’re not pushing over the line — not to the line, but over the line – you’re going to be behind somebody that is willing to do that.

It’s such a tricky thing, right? You want a fair and even playing field, and I feel like I do have that. Every time I get on a racetrack, I don’t feel like somebody’s completely out of bounds. And when they are, I think it shows up very obvious. That being said, I think that’s some of the more interesting, neat things about our sport, is those guys’ ability to outfox Johnny Law.

That’s literally what they’re doing. But that’s what they get paid to do, and they’re all extremely intelligent people, too. This isn’t like ol’ Joe Blow off the street, uneducated nothing. They have massive amounts of experience doing this. There are highly educated people that are going to bat. And the sanctioning body is trying to keep up with these boys. That’s a tall order."

Bowyer certainly isn’t alone with his point of view. A couple years ago, Denny Hamlin shared similar feelings after he still received some credit for his 2017 win at Darlington Raceway, even though it was was “encumbered."

As For The Win previously reported, Hamlin said, in part:

“My advice to those who say this or that is all the old-school fans that have been watching NASCAR forever, your driver cheated at some point in their career and they got away with it. The difference is inches, not thousandths because they didn’t measure that stuff back then." USA Today