Bowyer credits his team more than himself for being in position to tie the record Saturday night in the Subway Fresh Fit 500 at Phoenix International Raceway.

“It speaks volumes about RCR and everybody that works on RCR on these cars that the guy that I’m going to hopefully beat for this record is an RCR driver, and those same guys worked on his car as well,” Bowyer said Friday prior to practice at PIR. “It says a lot about our program, our organization that [team owner] Richard [Childress] runs.”

But the driver has something to do with it, right? Well, Bowyer admits that his driving experience probably has contributed to his consistency as far as keeping the car running through the entire event.

“It goes back to my dirt days racing, only having one car, racing for championships with my father, and if you tore your car up, you weren’t going to finish that race, you weren’t going to win that race, and you weren’t probably going to win the championship if you were DNF’ing,” Bowyer said. “I learned that back then, having only one car and if you tore it up, you had to go back home and fix it. And fixing it sucks.”

The last time that Bowyer didn’t finish a race was a Phoenix event in November 2006. An oil line was to blame for parking the car about six laps prior to the finish.

“You have to have good equipment,” Bowyer said. “You have to have good people working on that car. [Crew chief] Shane Wilson, … everybody at RCR, the engine shop at [Earnhardt-Childress Racing Technologies] – that many races without an engine failure or anything like that, that speaks volumes for everybody who works on this car.”

Harvick’s streak ended with an accident at Auto Club Speedway in California in February.

“You’ve got to get to the finish line,” Bowyer said. “It gets down to the end of these races. Look at next week at Talladega. That’s going to be a race where you never know until right there at the end of the race – that’s when it’s time to go, and you’ve got to go for it. You’ve got to lay it all on the line and go for it, and you may not come around to the checkered [flag and] the finish line.”

Currently fourth in points, Bowyer is looking for his first win of the season. In fact, RCR doesn’t have a win this year. But it’s not for a lack of effort or desire, Bowyer said.

“Richard hasn’t been pulling back,” Bowyer said. “He’s been pushing forward and trying to bring in new people, bring in better people – new people, new ideas, whatever you want to call it – to better our program to where we can win races.

“He’s a racer, and that’s what I like about working for Richard Childress. He’s willing to go that extra mile to make sure that he’s on top and gets back to where he belongs and where he’s used to being.”

The racer in Bowyer, while happy that he is on the verge of the record for having his car running at the finish, wants something more.

“I want to be known for the most wins,” Bowyer said. “That’s what you want to be known for. That’s the record that you want – [that] or most championships.”

Click here to see the article as it appeared on Friday at SceneDaily.com.