Sunday, Alex Bowman did more than score his first career victory in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. He laid to rest the ghosts of BK Racing and Tommy Baldwin Racing and proved that he’s worthy of a top-tier Cup ride.
A dirt racer from Tuscon, Ariz., Bowman turned into a promising prospect after a four-win, fourth-place in points 2012 campaign in the ARCA Menards Series. This translated into a full-time XFINITY Series ride at RAB Racing in 2013, where he finished 11th in points.
His career hit a major setback, however, with two seasons in the Cup Series for both BK Racing and Tommy Baldwin Racing; two back marker teams in the series. His finishing average for both seasons were 32.6 in 2014 and 31.6 in 2015; never finished better than 13th in either season.
On Jan. 21, 2016, Tommy Baldwin Racing announced that they released Bowman, who found out about it from refreshing Twitter at the gym. And this was only a day after he met with team owner Tommy Baldwin Jr., who assured him that his job was secure.
For most drivers, that’d be the end of the journey. But JR Motorsports Kelley Earnhardt Miller saw differently.
She knew Bowman had more potential than his time with BKR and TBR demonstrated, and signed him to a nine-race limited schedule in the team’s No. 88 XFINITY Series car. While he didn’t light the world on fire, his results displayed the talent that made him a hot prospect.
At the same time, Bowman was hired by Hendrick Motorsports as a simulator driver to help test car setups.
When Dale Earnhardt Jr. was sidelined with a concussion halfway through the 2016 Cup Series season, Bowman was chosen to sub for him in 10 of the remaining 18 races (Jeff Gordon drove the other eight). Most of it was average, which was what most people expected. But he had his breakthrough race in November at ISM Raceway in Phoenix, where he won the pole, led a race-high of 193 and finished sixth, after a controversial restart where he sent race leader Matt Kenseth into the wall heading into Turn 1.
While he received offers for rides in 2017, he opted not to sign any of them, choosing instead to remain a sim driver for HMS.
“I thought long and hard about a few different opportunities, and it just made more sense for me to stay part of HMS,” Bowman said at the time. “Whatever my role is here, I’m happy to be part of it. I still get to be part of, in my eyes, the best organization in NASCAR.”
After making a combined three starts in NASCAR’s top three series in 2017, Hendrick Motorsports announced that Bowman would replace the retiring Earnhardt in the No. 88 car in 2018.
“Alex impressed the heck out of us last year with his talent, poise and professionalism,” Rick Hendrick said. “He stepped up in a very demanding situation and showed that he can run with the best and compete for wins.
“His ability to stay focused through it all, and the way he’s handled himself since then, has shown a lot of character. Greg (Ives, crew chief) and the team loved working with Alex, and that dynamic will get even better with more time together.”
However, Bowman joined Hendrick Motorsports when it was hitting a valley in performance. Aside from a pole in the Daytona 500 and a playoff berth, his 2018 campaign was average. And the first quarter of the 2019 season fueled the fire of his critics who said he didn’t deserve another chance in the Cup Series.
But everything changed from Talladega Superspeedway onwards, where he rattled off three consecutive runner-up finishes.
And then came Sunday at Chicagoland Speedway, where the Hendrick Motorsports drivers showed speed that was lacking for most of the season.
Pit stops cycled him to the lead and he pulled away from the field. After he caught a group of lapped cars and spent multiple laps getting around them, his three-second lead to Kyle Larson started to shrink.
With 10 laps to go, Larson caught Bowman. With five to go, he passed Bowman for the lead. But the following lap, Bowman had a run on Bowman going into Turn 1, overtook him and drove on to his first career victory in 134 career starts.
“I feel like this is the last box, aside from going and chasing the championship, that I needed personally for myself to validate my career,” he said.
And validate he did. He validated not just himself, but everyone who went out on a limb to give him another chance, despite his time with BKR and TBR, and silenced the critics who said “But you haven’t won a race.”
“Everyone can finally stop giving me crap,” he added. “We finally did it.”
While he was pretty subdue about his celebration at the track (compared to other drivers), he let it all out when he made it back home to Mooresville, N.C., as shown in this early morning tweet.
TOP PHOTO OF ALEX BOWMAN: Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images
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