Second-place finisher Clint Bowyer sees plenty of obstacles

If you’re Clint Bowyer, being, shall we say, overly suspicious doesn’t necessarily mean people aren’t out to get you.

You see, things haven’t been going so well for the 31-year-old racer for the Richard Childress team.

Sunday he thought he had the race won with 17 laps remaining in the Pepsi Max 400 at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana. In fact, he was starting to pull away from the field when NASCAR threw a caution flag, citing debris on the track.

Bowyer followed that up with an angry exchange to his pit crew -- not directed at them but the sport bosses -- wondering where the debris was located.

One of NASCAR’s interesting coincidences is that whenever a race gets out of hand and uncompetitive, there always seems to be a piece of debris that is spotted, bringing out the caution flag. It allows the field to be bunched up for a restart. It’s one of those great equalizers.

“I saw it [the debris] for a long time,” Bowyer said. “The biggest one, though, was like a whole rear of a car laying down in [turns] one and two. I guess they never saw that one. You know, I mean, it’s part of it.”

Bowyer finished second behind Tony Stewart. It’s a flip-flop of fortunes from the first Chase race in New Hampshire and it’s also where this tale of being picked on starts.

Stewart and Bowyer were locked in a tight race, with Stewart looking more dominant. But Bowyer was managing his fuel better and Stewart ran out of gas with two laps to go, allowing Bowyer to end an 88-race winless streak.

Then during a secondary inspection it was discovered that the rear of Bowyer’s car was 39 one-thousandths of an inch too high. Bowyer was docked 150 points, his crew chief, Shane Wilson, was suspended and car chief Chad Haney was fined. Bowyer was for all purposes out of the Chase after the first week. He’s currently 247 points behind leader Jimmie Johnson and in 12th (and last) place in the playoff standings.

The suspension was reduced to four races and the fine was lowered to $100,000 on appeal. But no change on the points reduction. Sunday was Bowyer’s first race with interim crew chief Scott Miller.

“I didn’t know what to expect without our crew chief and everything,” Bowyer said. “I’ve never been without a crew chief and never been in that situation. But Scott filled in well.”

Bowyer was asked whether he thought NASCAR had it in for him.

“That’s a good question,” he said. “No comment.”

Strong race by Martin

Mark Martin, who is likely to become Danica Patrick’s NASCAR driving teacher, showed he’s not ready to give up racing. The well-liked 51-year-old driver had one of the strongest cars Sunday, leading 41 of the 200 laps. But in the end he couldn’t hold the lead and finished sixth.

“It was nice to be really strong,” he said. “I would have liked to have seen more racing at the end instead of all that [two late cautions]. But I’m not going to complain. It’s been a long time that I had a race car that could win a race and that one could have won under the right circumstances.”

A missed opportunity

David Reutimann would normally be pleased with a top-10 finish, but he felt his car was better than his finish. Reutimann started 23rd and made up 13 positions.

“We came from a pretty good ways back in the pack,” he said. “We got up inside the top 10 then came down pit road, made no changes, just changed four tires and it went to pieces. . . . It happens, it’s just real discouraging. I ended up battling back, should have been better than 10th. I just messed up coming off [turn] four and let two guys get by me.”

Chevy wins again

Tony Stewart’s win gave Chevrolet its eighth straight Sprint Manufacturers’ Cup. It is the 34th time Chevy has won the award, which was first given in 1950. There are six races remaining on the schedule.

john.cherwa@latimes.com