Bowyer takes center stage as Nationwide champion

ORLANDO, Fla. -- For the second consecutive season, NASCAR celebrated a split championship in its No. 2 national tour when Clint Bowyer and Joe Gibbs Racing were honored as the driver and owner champion Saturday night during the Nationwide Series awards banquet in the Tuscan Ballroom at the Portofino Bay Hotel at Universal Orlando.

It was Nationwide Insurance's first event as series sponsor, after a 26-year run by Anheuser-Busch's Busch brand.

One unique season

Clint Bowyer won the championship, JGR won the owners' title with four drivers, and the best rookie is unsure what's next. What a season.

• Bowyer hung tough for title
• JGR uses unique approach
• Cassill: No guarantees yet

And while the Gibbs organization has a multiple championship pedigree in the Cup Series, this was a first -- and the moment of a lifetime -- for Bowyer, 29. He earned the evening's only standing ovation from a packed house of his competitors, Richard Childress Racing teammates, family and something more when he was introduced as champion near the end of the four-hour production.

"Unbelievable," Bowyer said 45 minutes later, awash in the hubbub of the Gibbs-Childress co-hosted afterparty. "To know that I was up there in front of, just, all my friends was just incredible."

The soiree rewarded two organizations for seasons that featured brutal consistency on the part of Bowyer, his No. 2 Chevrolet crew and chief mechanic Dan Deeringhoff, via 29 top-10 finishes in 35 races and a spectacular, nine-win season by four drivers in JGR's No. 20 Toyota.

It led to NASCAR's second-best championship finale, behind the Craftsman Truck Series that was decided by seven points. Bowyer beat Roush Fenway Racing's Carl Edwards, the defending series champion, by 21 points for the drivers' championship. JGR beat RCR by 12 points for the owners' title.

"There is no one in the sport I'd rather share this with than the Gibbs organization," Childress said after the ceremony, before raising a glass of his vineyard's wine to toast the respective operations.

Childress, who won six Cup Series driver and owner championships with Dale Earnhardt, beat Gibbs' No. 20 team for the 2007 owners' title and previously won this series' owners' championship in 2003, the first time it was split. RCR swept both championships with driver Kevin Harvick in 2006.

Nationwide's chief marketing officer Jim Lyski presented Bowyer with a point fund check for $1,327,754, the bulk of Bowyer's $2,428,824 in season winnings, which included $1,041,070 in race purses. Bowyer received $60,000 in contingency awards Saturday night, including the Sunoco Diamond Performance Award and the Goodyear Award, which included the traditional silver replica of the champion's race vehicle. (Continued)