September 27, 2020 | By Lee Spencer

Alex Bowman remains optimistic entering Las Vegas Motor Speedway

With Alex Bowman’s performance at the start of the season, it appeared 2020 just might be his breakout year. 

Sure, Bowman won in 2019. But his seven top fives, 12 top 10s and 12th-place finish in the point standings was nothing to write home about—not behind the wheel of a Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.

Bowman and crew chief Greg Ives appeared to make progress this season by scoring the win at Auto Club Speedway in Race 3. He was fourth in points before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. When racing resumed at Darlington in May, once again, the No. 88 Chevy was up front. Bowman finished a career-high second-place at Darlington Raceway but has scored just one top-five finish in his last 25 starts—a fifth-place result last month at Dover. 

Despite the promise Bowman exhibited earlier, he may be able to point his way into the Round of 8. But Bowman is not going to top-10 his way into the final four at Phoenix Raceway. 

"It sure would be nice to go win Vegas, but we’re above the cutline right now," Bowman said. "I think we finished seventh in points the last round. We’re obviously closer than I want to be, but at the same time, I think we have every opportunity to point our way in if we just have a good, solid round and execute every week. We just can’t beat ourselves.”

Still, sitting seventh in the standings, Bowman remains optimistic heading into Las Vegas.

“I think we’re in a good place, for sure,” Bowman said. “Darlington went really well for us. Richmond we knew was probably our weak point of the Playoffs. Bristol was going to be a solid top-five night until we had that tire issue. The last couple of weeks, I think we’ve been really strong. Darlington, we had an issue on pit road that cost us a top-five, but I think we still finished sixth. We’re in a good spot.

“We’re going to some race tracks that are notoriously really good for us compared to where we’ve been over the last couple of weeks. I’m really confident. I think Greg (Ives) and the guys are working really well together and we should be really good.”

Bowman finished 13th in the spring race at Las Vegas. Coincidentally, that’s his average finish at the 1.5-mile track. But Goodyear has thrown a wrench into the equation by introducing a new tire for Sunday’s race.

“I think the tires are probably the most crucial part of what we do, so for it to be different, it’s definitely a big unknown,” Bowman said. “It’s supposed to be a little bit more grip. So, if it’s more grip, I’d say the race will be similar to February, just in the sense that the track is going to have less, so maybe it will even out a little bit.

“But it’s going to be really hot and really slick, so it’ll be interesting to see how the tire fall-off is and just how it reacts.”

Although Bowman showed speed earlier on 1.5-mile tracks, he’s lacked consistency. His average finish after 12 intermediate starts is 18.75. But the Hendrick engine department has had time to refine its’ package since the last time NASCAR Cup teams raced on a 1.5-miler in July.

“I think we’re always trying to find more speed and more power,” Bowman said. “Our engine shop works really hard to constantly try to find whatever they can find. I think we definitely fell off through the summer and we looked in all areas to just try to improve every area and engines were definitely one. I hope we have enough speed. I think at Darlington and Bristol, we definitely showed we have enough speed.

“Going to a place like Las Vegas, you look at how we were in the spring there – if we can go and do that again and finish it off this time, that’d be great. But it’s really hard to say. Even for us, not having any practice and just going to so many different race tracks to start the Playoffs, I’m really not quite sure how our 1.5-mile program is going to stack up. But I’m really confident in it and think we’ll be really good.”

With the recent chatter of Bristol contemplating turning the Last Great Coliseum into a dirt track, Bowman, who owns his own midget team, says he’d be up for the challenge.

“I’d race lawnmowers if I had to,” Bowman said. “A Cup car on dirt—it doesn’t sound so bad to me. Bristol is a little interesting one. It’s a great race track and to see that race track kind of lose a race, in a sense, would definitely be a bummer. But I’m just interested to see, if something like that were to happen, how it would all play out.

“It’s really interesting to kind of read the rumors and what everybody’s saying. I think it would be a lot of fun—I’m all for running Cup cars on dirt. I never ran the Truck race at Eldora, but I did run some ARCA stuff at the Springfield Mile and that was a blast. Obviously, a very different race track, but that was a lot of fun.”