Alex Bowman gets his first-ever Cup Series win at Chicago
Alex Bowman is a winner in NASCAR’s Cup Series.
Bowman re-passed Kyle Larson for the lead with five laps to go to get the first Cup Series win of his career and the first win for the No. 88 car since a guy named Dale Earnhardt Jr. drove it.
Bowman had the lead late but Larson ran him down as Bowman struggled to navigate through lapped traffic. And Larson made the pass for what seemed to be the win. But Bowman didn’t give up and hung with Larson for a couple laps before retaking the lead.
“I’m just tired of running second,” Bowman said after getting out of his car. “I don’t want to do that any more. 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. I feel like, obviously, there’s a lot more left to accomplish, but this is always what I hear — ‘But you haven’t won a race’ — I think even [longtime Hendrick Motorsports crew chief Chad Knaus] said something about me not winning a race. So Chad Knaus, there, we went and did it. Everybody can stop giving me crap. We finally did it.”
Bowman’s win comes in the weeks after longtime Hendrick Motorsports sponsor Nationwide Insurance said it was leaving the team after the 2019 season. The announcement leaves Bowman’s team with a huge sponsorship hole to fill for the 2020 season. But the best way to find sponsorship — and keep your ride in the face of limited sponsorship — is to go win a race. And Bowman did just that.
His win — which is in his 134th career Cup Series start — comes after a close call with victory lane at Kansas where Brad Keselowski passed him for the lead. Bowman’s struggles with traffic made it seem like he was bound to repeat that Kansas folly in the Chicago evening. But the traffic wasn’t a factor after he found some speed after Larson got past him.
The race was run into the evening at Chicago after a line of severe thunderstorms came through just after the scheduled green flag time of 3 p.m. ET. NASCAR stupidly made the decision to start the race as the thunderstorms approached and raced 11 laps — or about six minutes — before red-flagging the event because of lightning in the area. The red flag for rain and track drying then took over three hours before the race resumed.
Larson finished second while Joey Logano was third. Seven-time Cup Series champion and Bowman’s Hendrick teammate Jimmie Johnson was fourth while Brad Keselowski finished fifth. All four of the HMS cars finished in the top 11 as William Byron was eighth and Chase Elliott was 11th.
Results
1. Alex Bowman
2. Kyle Larson
3. Joey Logano
4. Jimmie Johnson
5. Brad Keselowski
6. Ryan Blaney
7. Erik Jones
8. William Byron
9. Martin Truex Jr.
10. Austin Dillon
11. Chase Elliott
12. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
13. Kurt Busch
14. Kevin Harvik
15. Denny Hamlin
16. Aric Almirola
17. Ryan Newman
18. Chris Buescher
19. Daniel Hemric
20. Michael McDowell
21. Paul Menard
22. Kyle Busch
23. David Ragan
24. Daniel Suarez
25. Bubba Wallace
26. Ross Chastain
27. Matt DiBenedetto
28. Ryan Preec
29. Matt Tifft
30. Corey LaJoie
31. Landon Cassill
32. Bayley Currey
33. Josh Bilicki
34. Reed Sorenson
35. Ty Dillon
36. BJ McLeod
37. Clint Bowyer
38. Quin Houff
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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports
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