If Austin Cindric’s Ford catching fire wasn’t enough theater, Alex Bowman nearly turned Bristol into a miracle play. With 42 laps left, Cindric was in the pits with his right-front smoking like a bad brisket, and suddenly Bowman was within a single point of sneaking into the next round. For a heartbeat, the No. 48 had hope.
And then reality set back in.
Bowman fought all night, wrestled his Hendrick Chevy to an eighth-place finish, and looked solid doing it. But solid doesn’t erase a 23-point deficit. In NASCAR math, eighth isn’t nearly good enough when you show up buried in the standings. The Bristol crowd loves a Hail Mary, but this one fell short of the end zone.
Bowman admitted the problem wasn’t one glaring mistake.
“I don’t think really one thing cost us,” he said. “Being out of tires at the end isn’t good, right? We just played the hand we could and stayed out. But if I had to pick one thing, our cycle tire restarts were just really poor. I couldn’t go at all. Zero grip. On stickers or qualifying scuffs it was fine, but cycle tires were really bad.”
That’s Bristol in a nutshell: fresh tires feel like magic, old ones feel like they’re made of garden hoses. Bowman’s late-race strategy left him playing with a deck full of recycled rubber, and it showed.
Still, he refused to throw his team under the bus.
“Hats off to our Ally 48 team,” Bowman said. “They did a good job throughout the day after a rough last two weeks. I think we swung it the right direction, and we can continue to do that. We knew it was going to be tough coming in. Certainly sucks to not transfer, but not a terrible day for us, and we’ll keep digging.”
That’s the maddening thing about Bowman: one week he looks invisible, the next he flashes speed. This summer he was lightning quick, but lately he’s been off the pace, and even he sounded surprised at the drop-off.
“I think this summer we were so fast every week that I’m a little surprised to be down on speed,” he admitted. “We have some work to do, but the guys work hard. Tires change, the field changes. We’ve just got to keep digging.”
So, Bowman’s Playoff dream ends here. He didn’t flame out spectacularly like Cindric or Elliott, but Bristol doesn’t care. It quietly chewed up his points cushion, spat him out, and moved on to the next victim.
Eighth place looks respectable on paper. But in the Playoffs, it may as well be 38th.
Greg was a writer for DriveTribe supporting Amazon's The Grand Tour 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, and a Masters degree in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek and a regular contributor to Forbes.
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