NASCAR Notes: Needed Result For Bowman; Racing In The Rain
MOORESVILLE, N.C. — Alex Bowman has endured a lot of bad luck in recent NASCAR Cup Series races, including a violent crash not of his making on June 8 at Michigan Int’l Speedway.
Still nursing a sore back, Bowman finished fourth Sunday at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City.
It was his third top-five finish of the season in the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.
“It feels good to get this No. 48 Ally Chevrolet team a run that they deserve. We’ve had a lot of fast race cars and just had days that haven’t gone our way,” Bowman said. “We’ve had issues and there’s been times that I’ve crashed the car, so to get them a good run after everything this week and how hard they’ve had to work is great. Just really appreciate all of their support and glad we could get a top-five finish.”
Bowman’s lone victory last season was at the Chicago Street Course, which is one of back-to-back road course races July 6 and July 13 (Sonoma Raceway).
“Yeah, I feel like road course racing has become a strong suit for the No. 48 team. I feel like the strategy that we’ve had has been great,” Bowman said. “Going to slicks there pretty early and getting back positions that way, we’ve done that a couple of times and it makes my job easy from there. So yeah, I think we have a shot at a win. Really, going to Pocono, we have a shot there too. We ran second or third there last year. Just excited to get things pointed in the right direction.”
• Podium finishers Christopher Bell and Chase Elliott had different thoughts about the impact of the rain on their cars.
“I really struggled when it was raining,” said Elliott, who finished third in his Hendrick Motorsports Cherolet. “Then when it dried out, I thought our car came to us, and we started to get, I thought, competitive from that point forward.”
Bell, meanwhile, credited the rain for helping him make his way from 31st on the grid to finish second.
“Yeah, for me, the rain, I was super excited about it at the beginning of the race,” Bell said. “I didn’t qualify very good, so starting in the back, the rain really opened up the opportunity to gain some positions, and we were able to use that to get ourselves to the front.
“That was very rewarding and beneficial to my race, and then once the track dried out, it was just a matter of comparing yourself to the guys up front.”
• Despite strategy not playing out the way he and his Spire Motorsports team had hoped, Michael McDowell earned his first top-five finish of the season, claiming fifth in the No. 71 Chevrolet.
“Overall, it was a great day for the No. 71 B’laster Chevrolet team. We’re bummed out,” McDowell said. “Our Chevrolet was fast. I felt like our strategy was going to work out there. We were just a few laps away from it working out, but unfortunately the caution came out. It happens…You can’t plan for everything. But I feel like we did a great job of coming back up through the field from restarting 15th there in the last stage.
“Proud of the effort and proud of the speed. We needed a little bit more, but it’s something to build on. If we keep building here at Spire Motorsports, we’ll get a win. It’s good to be bummed with a top-five finish. I felt like we had more today and hopefully we’ll get a chance to prove that when we get to the upcoming road courses. Mexico City was a lot of fun. It was a cool weekend and a cool race track.”
• Strategy helped Cole Custer grab his first top-10 finish of the season, bringing the Haas Factory Ford home eighth. He was the best-finishing Ford driver in Mexico City.
“It was a really solid points day, and I can’t say enough about our guys and everything they had to go through this weekend,” Custer said. “I had a really solid car and great strategy from Aaron (Kramer), so hopefully we can keep moving in the right direction.”
• Chris Buescher finished 10th for RFK Racing. It was his eighth top-10 finish of the season.
“A decent finish overall. We tried something and stayed out on slicks, hoping that rain shower was quick and gone and that just wasn’t the case,” Buescher said. “That was my call, and it was the wrong one. The team did a good job with strategy, getting us back up front and earning some stage points and a top 10 on the day.”
• After winning Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race in his home country, Daniel Suarez finished 19th on Sunday as strategy did not play into the hands of the No. 99 Trackhouse Racing team.
“That was the highlight of my weekend. NASCAR coming here to Mexico, I think we all had an amazing time, not just on-track, but also off-track,” he said. “I think we were in the fight… we were in the hunt. We had a top-five, top-10 No. 99 Telcel Chevrolet. There were a lot of different strategies out there and, unfortunately, ours just didn’t work out. It’s nobody’s fault, it just wasn’t meant to be today.”
• John Hunter Nemechek earned his fifth top-10 finish of the season, driving his Legacy Motor Club Toyota to a sixth-place finish.
“Hats off to this whole 42 Legacy Motor Club team. Pye-Barker colors look really good on our Camry this weekend, and I’m super stoked on a sixth-place finish,” Nemechek said. “Our road course program has not been good here at Legacy Motor Club, so solid run for us after the last three weeks we’ve had – two wrecks, and not so good run in Nashville – we needed this as a team to get back on track.”
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