Tuesday, December 06, 2016

2017 Fantasy Nascar Profile: Clint Bowyer

Welcome to TimersSports

Driver Name: Clint Bowyer

Car #: 14

Make: Ford

Season Debut:

Number of Championships: 0

# of Career Starts: 397

# of Career Poles: 2

# of Career Wins: 8

# of Career Top 5s: 58 

# of Career Top 10s: 167

# of Career DNFs: 30

# of Career laps led: 2,338 

Career Average Finish: 15.9

Career Average Start: 18.2

# of 2016 Wins: 0

# of 2016 Top 5s: 0

# of 2016 Top 10s: 3 

# of 2016 Poles: 0

# of 2016 DNFs: 2 

# of 2016 laps led: 3

2016 Average Finish: 23.6

2016 Average Start: 30.7

2016 Fantasy Recap - Clint Bowyer had one of his worst seasons ever behind the #15 Car for HScott. Statically speaking, he had his worst year ever as a full-time driver. It was also the first time that he haven't been apart of a major team as well. He only posted 3 top 10 finishes in 36 races and added 10 Top 20 finishes with 23.6 average finish. It safe to say he won't put up those type of numbers for quite some time again, as he will be driving for SHR in 2017 and beyond. You shouldn't put much stock into data from 2016 as it is considered to be greatly inflated compared to reality.

Strong Tracks - Sonoma, Michigan, Richmond and Martinsville

Weak Tracks - Phoenix and Atlanta

Yahoo Grouping Tier: B-list Grouping

2017 Fantasy Outlook - Clint Bowyer should have a much better year than 2016, with a major uptick in equipment level. The challenging part with Clint will be not using last season data to get a good idea on his potential. Commonly, us fantasy players try to use past season data to figure out a driver's range. For 2017, that won't work so well. Anyways, I expect Bowyer to have a pretty good year with the #14 team. I think he will be at his best on the shorter track racetracks in general. As from a career point of view, everything points at Clint being an short track ace. With that said, Clint never been on a real raceteam in terms of top equipment. I say 2012 was the only year that he was in top equipment, when MWR was peaking. He won 3 races that year, so very hard to say what he could be with SHR. I still say that Clint will be at his best on the short tracks and road courses. You can also add the shorter flats and plate tracks to list of strengths for Clint. Phoenix is more of a weak track for him, but Richmond and New Hampshire are definitely close to top for him as strong tracks. As for intermediate tracks, I would say most weekends his ceiling is top 10. I don't really expect him to go out and contend for top 5 finishes. He may sneak in a couple top 5 finishes, but I don't think it can be depended on consistently though. Another question mark will be the larger flats for him. I am not really sure what to expect from him. With better equipment, we should see uptick in production but will it be enough? I don't know. He has never ran well at either track, but I would say he would be a top 10 to low-teen driver at those two venues. Overall, I expect good things from Clint Bowyer. He should get back to the win column in 2017 and posted somewhere around 6 to 10 Top 5 finishes and hover with 15 to 20 Top 10 finishes. I am not expecting the world, but those numbers are doable for him I think.

***All stats are from DriverAverages.com

Twitter - @JeffNathans18\