TALLADEGA, Ala.: For the second time this season, Alex Bowman led the charge for Hendrick Motorsports.
The driver of the No. 48 Ally Chevrolet survived the GEICO 500 with a fifth-place finish at Talladega Superspeedway — his second top five at the 2.66-mile track.
Just 10 races into the 2024 season, Bowman has matched his total top-fives scored in each of the last two years. Still, he found his race to be lackluster at best.
“Not amazing, honestly,” Bowman said. “Not that we didn’t have a good car or a good No. 48 Ally Camaro or good strategy–just kind of didn’t have the openings I needed at times.
“There was so much riding around saving fuel. And then when we finally all would go run around wide-open, there weren’t really many moves to make, and we were buried and stuck on the bottom. We just never had a hole to get up or do anything.”
For Bowman, Talladega was probably a bit anticlimactic after nearly winning the Great American Race in February. He finished second to his Hendrick teammate William Byron in the season-opening Daytona 500—a career-best.
On Sunday, Bowman started 12th and finished 10th in Stage 1 on Lap 61. At the end of Stage 2, 60 laps later, the No. 48 was 14th. For the first time since stages were introduced in 2017—the first two stages at Talladega went caution-free except for the planned break between stages 1 and 2. However, on Lap 121, the final lap of Stage 2, Brad Keselowski set a Next Gen era record lap pace with a speed of 197.362.
Bowman restarted 12th for the final 61 laps. Seven circuits later, Christopher Bell triggered the first race-related caution. Bowman ran 15th at the caution. He restarted 18th and as the laps wound down, Bowman hooked up with his Hendrick teammates in the draft. Unfortunately, they were separated for the final run.
“Situationally, I can’t remember if it was the 5 (Kyle Larson) or the 9 (Chase Elliott), but they got up to the middle right in front of me and I just didn’t have that hole to go with them. I kind of rolled around the bottom by myself, until the last lap, and then the seas parted and we ended up with a top five.
“When I say there wasn’t a move to make, I didn’t have a hole to change lanes. I didn’t have anything. I was stuck on the bottom the whole last run. That’s just speedway racing sometimes and kind of the package that we have.”
Bowman didn’t see the last lap incident triggered by Michael McDowell’s late block attempt on Keselowski or Corey LaJoie riding the wall on his door. He just felt relieved to come home with his car intact and his fourth top five in 2024.
“You’re trying to miss (the wreck) and get to the start – finish line,” said Bowman. “I was trying to get off of the 99 (Daniel Suarez) the best I could—and we all but crashed. It was big from where I sat. Just glad we avoided it.
“We ended up with a top-five finish. That’s great – obviously that’s great for the team. It wasn’t our best speedway race, but still a solid top-five.”
Follow Lee Spencer on Twitter @CandiceSpencer or email her at: [email protected].
