MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Near the end of Monday’s postponed STP 500 at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway, Hendrick Motorsports driver Alex Bowman was turning some of the fastest laps on the track.
Unfortunately, the driver of the No. 88 Nationwide Chevrolet ran out of laps to better his seventh-place finish in his fifth Cup start at the famed paperclip oval.
For most of the race, Bowman hovered inside the top-20, but during the last 108-lap run to the checkered flag, his Chevrolet came to life allowing Bowman to slice and dice his way through the field and earn the highest finish for Chevrolet, while also leading the Hendrick Motorsports brigade.
“Yeah, I mean… it’s frustrating to say we are looking for a seventh, but much better than we have been the last couple of weeks and just happy for all my guys,” said Bowman. “They have worked really hard all offseason and all year.
“We haven’t had the results we wanted, so to come here and finish stronger is definitely a step in the right direction. We’ve got a long way to go, but we are headed the right way.”
Despite a relatively calm race that featured just four cautions, Bowman said it was a physical race.
“I had my hands full. It wasn’t mellow for me,” Bowman explained. “I’m a little worn out. That was a physical one for me at least. I changed some stuff inside the racecar that made me able to go faster but probably wore me out a little quicker. I’m glad that I didn’t fall out of the seat there because it was pretty physical, but it was fun.”
Monday’s finish was needed for the Hendrick Motorsports powerhouse team. Besides winning the pole for February’s Daytona 500 – the team hasn’t had much to cheer about.
Of course, finishing inside the top-20 in every Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race this season isn’t horrible – but the team’s first top-10 finish since Bowman took the wheel from retired Cup driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. is something to build heading to Texas Motor Speedway on Apr. 8.
And for Bowman, he didn’t expect his first top-10 of the year to popup at Martinsville, one of the most demanding race tracks on the circuit.
“No, not at all,” offered Bowman when asked. “I mean Daytona, and then if not Daytona then Atlanta, and then if not Atlanta, Phoenix, I mean we are here to win races every week. To take this long to get a Top 10 it’s not what we wanted at all, but glad we are going the right way.”
Bowman was just one of three Chevrolets inside the top-10 during on Monday, and while he can’t pinpoint exactly one thing that the team can take away moving forward, he did digest that crew chief Greg Ives made the right adjustments, in the end, to allow Bowman to make his late race charge.
“That is a good question. I don’t know if it was one thing,” added Bowman. I felt like I had some good observations after second practice on somethings I wanted to change and they seemed to pay off big during the race. Or at least be the right direction during the race.
“Greg (Ives, crew chief) just made really good adjustments. Every stop we got better, we had solid pit stops all day, the pit crew worked really hard, just good decisions on top of the box and a good race car.”
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
