Bowyer remembers his roots

In the small city of Emporia where the Kansas Turnpike intersects with State Road 50, they talk about tornado season, the latest election and the days when the Tyson Foods plant once employed everyone in the area.

But they also talk racing.

They banter over the points standings, laps completed and how close the NASCAR championship was.

Emporia has never known a stronger passion for grease and oil, but its citizens have never had a hometown racer to talk about.

Clint Bowyer, an Emporia-born kid who raced dirt bikes -- and won -- at age 5 is changing everything.

"One of the top drivers on the NASCAR circuit will be in Emporia on Tuesday," read the first line in the local sports section of the Emporia Gazette newspaper last May.

It's all a tall task when you know you aren't just racing for your life, but also the happiness of a city of 26,000.

"I sure am proud of the folks back home," Bowyer recently told TV's ESPN2. "And it's rewarding to know they are following me."

Bowyer also hasn't left them behind. He still talks to the local newspaper, still visits family and friends and returns to host golf tournaments, like the one last May -- the first annual Clint Bowyer Charity Golf Event in Emporia -- that raised $160,000 for the Emporia Community foundation, just to "make Emporia a better place."

More little boys in Kansas know about stock car racing than their parents would choose to imagine. Bowyer's success has brought racing to this community, simply with the knowledge that you can make it big in the sport's biggest arena.

The 29-year-old Bowyer used the 2008 season to establish himself as one of NASCAR's brightest young stars.

He not only captured his first Nationwide Series championship -- previously Busch Series and the minor leagues of NASCAR -- after previously finishing second and third in the series, but made the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Chase for the Championship for a second consecutive season in just his third full year, finishing fifth after a third-place finish in 2007.

Bowyer posted one win, 14 top-fives and 29 top-10s in 35 Nationwide starts, accumulating more than $1 million in earnings. In Sprint Cup competition, Bowyer won once, posted seven top-fives and 17 top-10s in 36 starts, earning more than $4.5 million.

A simple kid with a desire to ride fast, Bowyer graduated from Emporia High School, attended Flint Hills Technical College and eventually took his motorcycle racing to another level at dirt tracks called Heartland Park, Thunderhill and Lakeside Speedway. He was a true hometown hero living out a dream.

"We'd drive by Kansas Speedway near Kansas City, hoping one day I would be pulling in to race," Bowyer told the Emporia paper in 2008.

Racing as a kid on area small tracks he collected more than 200 wins and a variety of championships in less than 10 years. At age 16, he changed his passion to cars and asphalt racing, taking a seat in an Automobile Racing Club of America (ARCA) car and continuing to win.

One night at a race in Nashville, Tenn., Bowyer, then 24, caught the attention of legendary NASCAR owner Richard Childress, who immediately put him into the No. 2 AC Delco car for the Busch Series in 2004.

It was a fast ride to the top.

In his third start of the Busch season, Bowyer qualified in the No. 1 spot, winning his first pole position. In 2005, he racked up two wins and a second-place finish in the NASCAR Busch Series title and even got a ride in the major leagues of Sprint Cup for one race. It was enough to earn him a permanent spot.

In 2006, Bowyer was named the driver of the No. 07 Jack Daniel's Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS and he quickly earned four top-five and 11 top-10 finishes en route to a runner-up finish in the Rookie of the Year standings, even recording a career-best third-place finish.

He's continued to get better ever since, cruising to a third-place overall Sprint Cup finish in 2007 and a fifth for 2008.

Since making it in the big leagues, Bowyer has made the time for a girlfriend, as well as his family.

When he rolled to the 2008 Nationwide title year, the hometown folks were right there behind him.

"It really is overwhelming," Bowyer told The Topeka (Kan.) Capital-Journal the night he won the Nationwide championship. "To think back to the old Lakeside days and the Heartland Park days and what got you here, it's just incredible."

But he didn't forget home.

Steven Reive is a feature writer with Wheelbase Communications. He can be reached on the Web at www.wheelbase.ws/mailbag.html. Wheelbase supplies automotive news and features to newspapers across North America.