Bowyer hung tough to clinch first Nationwide title

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. -- For sure, Clint Bowyer wouldn't have slit his wrists if Carl Edwards had overtaken him to win the 2008 Nationwide Series championship, but he wouldn't have known what to do with himself either.

Bowyer blew out a deep breath and just laughed when asked the question Friday morning at the ESPN Club in the Walt Disney Resort, on the eve of Saturday night's Nationwide Series fete in the Tuscan Ballroom at the Portofino Bay Hotel in Orlando, Fla.

Bowyer vs. Edwards

2008 N'wide stats

	Bowyer	Edwards
Wins	1	7
Top-fives	14	19
Top-10s	29	22
Poles	0	4
Avg. Start	10.5	8.0
Avg. Finish	8.3	9.5
LL Finish	31	29
DNFS	0	2

• 2008 Stats Bowyer | Edwards

"No, I wouldn't have been able to live with myself, and it's funny you ask that question," Bowyer said. "My older brother and I were laughing about that, flying down here, when he said, 'dude that really would have sucked if you wouldn't have won [the championship].'

"But it would have. To lead that thing the way that we did, with a comfortable 200-point margin for most of the season and right there in the last month, the panic came on and it was nerve-wracking.

"But we were in a situation where we had that 200-point lead, and that was good, but it wasn't good enough. If we'd had a catastrophic day, like we did at Memphis, then it opens the door and it puts him [Edwards] right back in the game."

Bowyer, who led Edwards by 207 points with seven races to go, lost 186 points the last seven weeks of the season, particularly when Edwards won three of the last four races and finished second in the other, on his way to seven total victories.

But Bowyer rallied in the Ford 300 finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway for a fifth-place finish. And while he was a bit disappointed to win only once and garner only 14 top-five finishes, he admitted his stellar 29 top-10s in 35 starts secured the title. It proved Childress' contention about Bowyer.

"Number one, he's got car control from being on dirt tracks and that type of racing," Childress said of what attracted him to hire Bowyer. "But I think it's, to be a champion and to be what it takes to be successful in this sport -- the toughest motorsport I think in the world -- is you've got to have heart.

"And he has heart, and he knows when to dig, and I [saw] that even at the first races I watched him run. You've got to have heart, and he has it." (Continued)