NASCAR has led the way in the return of sports in America. Sunday will continue to see NASCAR operate under a comprehensive health and safety plan that permits no fans, limited crew, strict social distancing, and mandated personal protective equipment and health screenings for all, just as it did for each of the two races held in both Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway and Darlington (S.C.) Raceway.

For Clint Bowyer, he hopes Sunday’s race in Bristol will turn his season back around. It’s been rough sledding for Bowyer since NASCAR’s return to racing after the pandemic suspended competition for 10 weeks. He’s been consistently shown having one of the fastest cars on the track in the four races, but accidents, penalties and bad luck have plagued his finishes.

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He enters Sunday’s race 14th in points after finishing 16th in Thursday night’s 500-kilometer race at Charlotte despite three penalties on pit road. A few days before, in Sunday night’s Coca-Cola 600, Bowyer moved from 20th to 11th-place before a mechanical issue sent his No. 14 Mustang into the wall on lap 96 of the 400-lap race, leaving him with a 40th-place finish.

Bowyer finished 17th and 22nd in the two Darlington races the previous week. He ran in the top-six most of the May 17 race before problems in the final stage dropped him to 17th. On May 20 at Darlington, he won the first two stages – a first for a driver in 2020 – and led 71 laps to surpass the 3,000-laps-led mark for his career. But, once again, very late-race trouble that saw wall contact and a spin resulted in a disappointing finish.

Bowyer hopes Bristol is the track where he can turn it around. He owns seven top-five finishes in 28 starts there, including four consecutive top-10s. In last year’s April race at Bristol, Bowyer started eighth and finished second in Stage 1, and eighth in Stage 2. He took the lead with 125 laps remaining, but contact with Joey Logano with 60 laps remaining ruined his bid for victory, leaving him with a seventh-place finish.

Bowyer jokingly wished it would rain in Charlotte this week so NASCAR would schedule doubleheaders at Bristol. That could be because he has finished in the top-eight at Bristol in seven of the last nine races.

“I just like the place,” he said. “I’m a short-track racer and have a lot of confidence on these short tracks coming up. I hope it starts Sunday.”

Bowyer, is eyeing a win now at one of his favorite tracks on the schedule.

“Anybody who hates Bristol shouldn’t be in racing because this is the mecca of all racetracks,” Bowyer said. “This is the granddaddy of them all. There’s no question. Look at this place. Look at the grandstands. I mean, there’s nothing like this place, and tracks like this we need all across the country. A fan, if they want to be a fan of this sport, they need to learn short-track racing and they need to learn of Bristol Motor Speedway. There’s not a fan, a family member, a friend, anybody that I know that I wouldn’t point in the direction of Bristol Motor Speedway so, as a racer on the racetrack, it’s no different.”

As to what makes it’s so special, Bowyer says “it’s just the unknown, being able to go for it, being able to not worry about an aero push or horsepower deficit or whatever the case may be – get ahold of the steering wheel, get ahold of the gas pedal and make something happen and this is a track where you can do that.”