KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- Clint Bowyer returns to his home track this weekend at Kansas Speedway. But even with the Kansas City Royals still in championship contention and this city buzzing with pride, he could be forgiven if he doesn't have that comfort-of-home, cozy and stable family feeling while he turns laps in his race car.
Michael Waltrip Racing will close in six weeks. Many of its 217 employees already know what day they will turn in their key card and no longer have a place to work. The layoffs start before the end of the season.
Bowyer's family of teammates, as well as the group that works with David Ragan, will try to keep it together while going through a breakup. That means trying to focus on the car to get it prepared for the Hollywood Casino 400 on Sunday and then do it over and over and over and over and over again.
There is no building for next year. There is no tomorrow.
"You hate to use the term that 'It is what it is,'" Bowyer said. "But it is, man.
"We've got to dig deep. We're all racers. We all want to go out and win. I want to win another race with MWR. We've had the crap beat out of us."
Bowyer made the Chase for the Sprint Cup but never challenged for a spot in the second round. Even if his team didn't have a 25-point penalty and suspension to crew chief Billy Scott resulting from violations found at Chicagoland, it appeared the team had lost some of the mojo it had when Bowyer clawed his way into the Chase as the last driver to make the cut.
The team had done about as well as it could do, and now it's time for team members to compete as hard as they can but also try to find their 2016 workplace.
"We're all racers. We all want to go out and win. I want to win another race with MWR. We've had the crap beat out of us." Clint Bowyer
Bowyer already knows he will race for HScott Motorsports in 2016, then for Stewart-Haas Racing starting in 2017. He doesn't feel guilty about already having his future secure, but he will try to look out for his comrades.
"If they can't go to wherever you're going, you want to be able to make sure they're going to a good home because they're valuable to you," Bowyer said. "You put their name in the hat at your future employment.
"If you know they are talking to somebody else and you know that guy, you are going to go over there to talk to that guy and say 'Hey, man, the dude is legit, you need to give him a shot. He's who you're looking for.'"
Michael Waltrip started his race team in 1995, and it eventually grew into a Cup program in 2007. He hasn't had it easy. Some of that was the team's own doing, getting caught with an illegal fuel additive right off the bat before qualifying for its first Daytona 500. The scandal resulted in suspensions and fines, scarring the opening days of Toyota competing in Sprint Cup.
Later that season, the team sat on the brink of financial turmoil and Waltrip needed an investor. He got one in Rob Kauffman, who worked to get the team financially stable.
MWR had some big moments, with seven wins in team history and Bowyer's runner-up finish in the standings in 2012. It also endured another controversy when Bowyer intentionally spun at the end of the 2013 regular-season finale at Richmond and teammate Brian Vickers pitted under caution. Those moves triggered a series of events that got teammate Martin Truex Jr. into the Chase, but NASCAR kicked him out by penalizing each of the drivers 50 points and issuing a record $300,000 fine.
The team eventually had to cut from three drivers to two because of the scandal and in some ways never recovered. Bowyer hasn't won since 2012. Former MWR driver Vickers, who had to give up his ride because of blood clots, has the organization's last win -- in July 2013.
The organization will try to make the best of the last six races.
"[Our sponsors] paid us at the beginning of the year for the whole year," Waltrip said last week. "They didn't pay us until seven [races] to go. My message to our people is we have a great culture at Michael Waltrip Racing, people that really care about the team and really care about each other.
"I just encourage them to continue to do that all the way to the very end. We'll wake up after [the season finale at] Miami and say we gave it our all. That's a good way to wake up."
Waltrip and Bowyer spent a couple of hours last week at an event in Gastonia, North Carolina, where sponsor Maxwell House gave out free gas and coffee for two hours.
Some waited in line overnight for the fuel. Getting to see Waltrip and Bowyer wasn't the priority for most -- they needed the gas. Bowyer and Waltrip did their best to put on a bright face, and in some ways that's easy for them. They know that their future could still depend on sponsors.
Bowyer wouldn't mind having some of his sponsors follow him to Stewart-Haas, although he has the comfort in knowing that SHR has a full staff of people working on landing him sponsorship for 2017. Waltrip doesn't know what he'll do beyond the broadcast booth next year. He'll race in the Daytona 500 -- team still to be determined -- but after that, he faces an uncertain future.
"After the Daytona 500, for the first time in 30 years, I won't have something to do with a car or a team, so I've got face that, figure out if that is all right or not or do I want to be involved in something," Waltrip said. "I don't really know the answer to that right now."
That's the tough part for the MWR organization. Many don't have answers about their futures. Bowyer will try to keep them focused.
"It's been 'Debbie Downer' for quite a while," Bowyer said. "And making that Chase was a super-big deal. ... I was beginning to lose faith in that, and to make that and to be able to celebrate a positive thing with that group was certainly special.
"We've got legitimately a couple of tracks [where] we could still win. Talladega, we've won there a couple of times, anybody can win there given the right circumstances. Martinsville is one of those races, ever since I've been at MWR, we have been close."
Bowyer, who spent six Cup seasons at Richard Childress Racing before joining MWR in 2012, then started to daydream...
"If we could strap that grandfather clock [trophy] to the roof of the rig and head home, that would be cool," he said of Martinsville.
It would be a great way to close the book on MWR, he said. But the reality is the chapter is going to close, win or lose. It's going to end.
"I'm just really thankful that we had such a good run for so long and since '07 we've provided jobs for a couple hundred-and-40 people," Waltrip said. "That makes me smile.
"We've brought sponsors to NASCAR that have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in the sport through our team. I'm really happy and thankful for all that. Nothing lasts forever. We certainly had a good run."