At some point in our lives, we've all gotten sick of talking about a significant moment, only for the topic to be brought up again and again. And it's safe to say that Clint Bowyer has reached that point when talking about Jeff Gordon.
As you've seen over and over again (and replayed to chariots of fire music and turned into a meme), Gordon intentionally wrecked Bowyer at Phoenix, the next-to-last race of 2012 after contact between the two had sent Gordon into the wall laps earlier. The intentional crash destroyed Bowyer's championship hopes (and his car) and after pulling to pit road, Bowyer made a full sprint to the garage area to find Gordon while the two drivers' teams ended up in a big scrum.
Bowyer hasn't forgiven Gordon for that moment, or if he has in private, he's certainly not showing it.
"Who cares? Really, who cares?" Bowyer said on Thursday when he was asked if he talked to Gordon between the banquet and Daytona testing. "Apparently you guys do way more than we do. I can promise you that. I missed that deer that I was talking about in Texas though, if that makes you feel any better. That was more important on my off-season list than figuring out where I was going to vacation and who I was going to vacation with. My neighbor shot it, it sucked. Yes. He was really happy -- I was not."
The subject was broached because Gordon and Bowyer spent New Year's in the same location -- on P. Diddy's yacht. And also because there has been no apparent resolution to the feud. In an era of NASCAR where drivers have been branded as "too vanilla," that's pretty rare. So yes, there were questions that needed to be asked.
"I was on the damndest boat you've ever seen in your life," Bowyer said. "I'm from Kansas. We don't have big boats in Kansas. We don't have very big bodies of water so I think (Gordon) was on that same boat, but there was a lot of other people on there and it was a big time being had. Yes, he was on there and I think it was on the same island. I'm pretty sure he was on there. It was pretty late. Put it that way."
"I had a great New Year's. I enjoyed myself very much," Gordon said.
So no, they didn't toast the arrival of 2013 together. Or did they?
"Yeah we held hands and walked on the boat, discussed the past year and enjoyed ourselves throughout the whole vacation," Bowyer said (sarcastically). "That was the one person I wanted to -- that I definitely wanted to vacation with."
"I could not wait to get there for that very reason."
