Strong restart puts a Bow(man) on Sunday's Cup win in Las Vegas
NOTE: Full results and updated driver standings follow below this story.
Some things take time to germinate and grow. Such is the case with Alex Bowman.
When the Tucson, Arizona native first advanced to the NASCAR Cup Series in 2014 with BK Racing, he was – well, let’s face it – horrible. In 36 starts, he had just one showing higher than 22nd place, that coming in the summer race at Daytona (finished 13th).
In his sophomore Cup season in 2015, competing for Tommy Baldwin Jr. Racing, Bowman had an equally disappointing season. He started ignominiously by failing to qualify for the Daytona 500, and then finished 33rd in the season's final standings.
In his 35 overall starts that season, it was more of the same from the previous campaign for Bowman, with his best showing being a 16th-place finish in the spring race at Talladega.
There were a lot of rumors about Bowman’s future, mostly less than promising.
But when Dale Earnhardt Jr. suffered a concussion that would sideline him for the final 18 races of the 2016 season, Bowman was brought in to alternate with Jeff Gordon, earning three top-10 finishes plus a pole in 10 starts.
With the exception of driving for Earnhardt in the non-points Advance Auto Parts Clash at Daytona prior to the season-opening Daytona 500, Bowman sat out the entire 2017 season, minus a ride.
But then came a huge shock – the most positive shock of Bowman’s career, that is.
When Earnhardt announced early in the 2017 season that he would be retiring at the end of the campaign, his surprising pick to replace him in the No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet was none other than Bowman.
Team owner Rick Hendrick concurred and less than two months later, Bowman was signed to replace Earnhardt starting with the 2018 Cup season.
Earnhardt and Hendrick literally could have picked anyone else to pilot the No. 88, but they chose Bowman. They obviously knew something, as the young driver has continued to improve with each passing season in the HMS camp.
In 2018, his first full season in replacing Earnhardt, while winless, Bowman had three top-5 and 11 top-10 finishes, and qualified for the playoffs (although he finished 16th).
In 2019, Bowman earned his first Cup win, had seven top-5 and 12 top-10 finishes and finished 12th.
In 2020, he had one win, six top-5 and 15 top-10 showings, finishing a career-best sixth in the final standings.
And then came 2021, which also included a switch in car numbers from Earnhardt’s No. 88 to Jimmie Johnson’s No. 48. Bowman won four races, had eight top-5 and 16 top-10 finishes, but due to being eliminated in the first round of the playoffs, finished a disappointing 14th in the final standings.
Now, three races into the 2022 season, Bowman once again has qualified for the playoffs, earning his seventh career Cup win in Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Montage courtesy: Dylan Bauerle
Here’s perhaps the most telling statistic that illustrates just how good of a driver Bowman has become: since the start of the 2021 season, he is now the second-winningest driver in the Cup Series: defending champ Kyle Larson has 11 (including last week’s victory at Fontana, Calif.), followed by Bowman’s five triumphs.
In a sense, Bowman won Sunday by snookering Larson, his teammate. Larson took the outside line on the final restart of the race, while Bowman, on just two fresh tires, took the inside line and rode it to the checkered flag.
“This thing was so fast all day,” Bowman told Fox Sports on the frontstretch after the race. “Never had the track position we needed to show it.
“Man, what a (pit strategy) call by (crew chief) Greg Ives and the guys to take two (tires) there. Obviously it paid off.
“I just can't say enough about these guys. It's been a pretty awful start to the year, so to come out here and get a win on a last restart deal is pretty special.”
Indeed, Bowman hit the nail on the head, it was an awful start to the 2022 season before Sunday’s win. In the Daytona 500, he finished 24th, four laps behind the leaders.
Last week at Fontana, while everyone was talking about the front of the pack conflict between eventual race winner Larson and teammate Chase Elliott, Bowman was literally a forgotten man, finishing back in the pack in 25th place.
But Sunday, Bowman was THE man. He ran a smart race, picked his spots, and with Ives’ outstanding strategy on the final pit stop, did what he had to do to keep Larson alongside him and ultimately behind him when they crossed the finish line.
“I think Hendrick Motorsports, the depth of people and how good each and every person is there, pays off,” Larson said of HMS’ second straight win in 2021. “We're here with a new race car that has completely changed everything in our industry, from how they work on it, how they build it. Everything I touch is different, the pedals, shifter, the steering.
“Obviously it's paying off, how good everybody is at HMS. I think we're in a pretty good spot.
“Happy to be able to get a win this early. The strength of the Hendrick cars this early has been great. There's so many unknowns this year. There's a lot going on. Excited to have the rest of the year to keep dialing these things in and be ready for the playoffs.”
Part of the reason Bowman struggled in the first two races this season is the new Next Generation car. It took him a while to get used to all the changes and nuances.
But it’s safe to say he finally figured it out Sunday. With the win, he climbed 17 spots in the standings, from 25th to eighth.
“We are race car drivers, we don't want everything that we touch in the entire car to change all of a sudden,” Bowman said. “The pedals are weird. The steering is way different. The seating position is different. Absolutely everything that I do as a race car driver has completely changed.
“Historically I've loved loose race cars. Cried like a little girl when I'm tight. I now have to figure out how to drive a tight race car because I can't make a loose race car work anymore.
“Just got to figure out new things, and it is hard. But, yeah, I think the car is doing what it's supposed to. The races have been great. Fontana historically was always won by like this big margin. Now we have close races each and every week. It's been really, really good."
Now that he’s won once thus far and this early in 2022, one of the biggest questions asked after Sunday’s race is whether Bowman win four races again this year? That remains to be seen.
But if he keeps driving like he has done the last few seasons, he may very well join Elliott and Larson as a champion by the end of this season.
Follow Jerry Bonkowski on Twitter @JerryBonkowski
