SPARTA, Ky – Securing his third consecutive top-10 finish last weekend at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway, Hendrick Motorsports driver Alex Bowman is certainly feeling the pressure to make the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.
And while there’s been an uptick in the performance of the No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, Bowman said it’s keen for his team to continue to mount strong finishes in case they don’t get to Victory Lane between now and Indianapolis Motor Speedway in September.
“There is definitely a good bit of pressure obviously that comes with it,” said Bowman. “Really last week was probably the most pressure that I will see until we get to Indy if things keep going the way they have. Definitely, in the back of my mind, I was looking at the No. 95 car (Kasey Kahne) leading laps and some of the other guys up there, I was like, oh this could get really bad for us.
“Glad it didn’t turn into too bad of a night for us, still got solid stage points and all that.”
While Bowman is still eyeing his first top-five finish this season, he says his team hasn’t executed well when it comes to stage points and eventual finishes.
With NASCAR’s point structure offering points to teams that finish inside the top-10 in the opening two stages – Bowman says he and his crew chief Greg Ives are determined to pick up the pace over the next couple of weeks.
“For me, it’s just we have to keep putting races together and keep running solid top 10 and hopefully that gets us there. Obviously, we would like to win before the cutoff, but I think we can do it on points we just have to keep moving in the right direction.
“We have kind of struggled to get stage points this year and that has really put us farther behind than I think we would be if we got stage points of how we finish. But we will just keep working at it and I think we can make it.
“Working with Greg is a ton of fun. I’ve started to understand his riddles a little bit, which is really a pretty big achievement in my book, but no, it’s been great working with him. I think we have been pretty solid. We have finally seemed to put races all the way together the last three weeks, not have any big mistakes and finished where we deserved to finish.”
The biggest achilles heel for Bowman this season has been their ability to improve on the handling of their No. 88 Chevrolet throughout the weekend. Though improvements have been made, Bowman articulated there’s still work to be done.
“You know we have been making cars better throughout the course of a race too, which is kind of something we struggled to do to start the year,” he explained. “Making cars better throughout qualifying which is also something we struggled to do to start the year.
“If we can just continue to get better every week I think we can be a contender by the end of the year. It’s just been a long slow process to kind of catch up from where we started the year, but we are definitely getting there.”
Make no mistake about it, however, winning is everything to Bowman, especially replacing the retired Dale Earnhardt Jr. But, the Tucson, Ariz. noted that after 18 Cup races this season – points hold an important value too.
“You are always thinking win first, but sometimes… we have obviously been off of where we want to be and sometimes you don’t have that opportunity and you’ve just got to be smart and not put yourself in a really bad position early in a race and stuff like that,” added Bowman.
“Always when you go to the race track you are thinking win first, but points are pretty important right now too.”
Entering Saturday night’s Quaker State 400 at Kentucky Speedway, Bowman is on the Playoff cutoff line – 19 points ahead of Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
