Alex Bowman charges to career-best fifth-place finish

Alex Bowman was a terror on restarts Monday.

From the first laps of the Food City 500, he served notice he was going to make the most of a fast No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, passing cars around the top of the track.

Bowman started eighth and finished fifth, the best result of his Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series career.

“It’s been a lot of fun finally getting some good runs going our way,” Bowman said. “It’s been cool. To run fifth, it’s not a great day, but it’s better than what we started the year doing. We’re making progress, making steps in the right direction and just got to keep doing that.

“I think by our self we had maybe even a faster race car than that. I just couldn’t be consistent with it. We were really loose in (into the corners) and my car was really sensitive to traffic. If anybody got within a half a car length of me, it just turned sideways getting in the corner every time.

“If I could break that gap and get away from them I would drive away, but with them right there I couldn’t do anything. It was interesting trying to fight through that, but glad we finished top five.”

Greg Engle
About Greg Engle 7421 Articles
Greg is a published award winning sportswriter who spent 23 years combined active and active reserve military service, much of that in and around the Special Operations community. Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.