INDIANAPOLIS – Alex Bowman will take to the grid from the fourth starting position in Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race at the road course of Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Bowman’s lap of 97.333 mph around the 14-turn, 2.439-mile course earned him a row two starting spot in the second race for the No. 17 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet Camaro this season. Bowman's top-10 starting spot marks his 13th straight starting spot in the top 10 in the Xfinity Series – a streak that dates back to 2016.
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Xfinity Series points leader AJ Allmendinger nabbed the pole position for the 62-lap race on Saturday afternoon.
In the 20-minute practice session at the Indianapolis Road Course, Bowman was 14th on the board. This weekend marks Bowman’s Xfinity start is his first in four years. The 29-year-old has one win in the series, which came in 2017 in the fall race at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Bowman is making the Xfinity start ahead of Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race (2:30 p.m. ET on NBC, IMS Radio Network, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course. While he has yet to win on a road course, Bowman has three top-five finishes, nine top-10s and a 14.91 average finish in 22 serpentine layout starts in the Cup Series ranks.
The Tucson, Arizona, native has logged additional seat time on road courses in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series this season with Spire Motorsports. At Circuit of The Americas, he was in the top three on the last lap before he was caught up in an incident on the last lap. In the next day’s Cup race, he finished second. Bowman also ran the Truck Series event at Sonoma Raceway where he was caught up in a late wreck after spending much of the race in the top five. In the Cup Series race at the California road course, the seven-time Cup winner spent a large portion of the race in the top 10 before losing track position while trying to avoid a late-race spin by Kyle Busch.
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The Indianapolis race marks the second of three events for the No. 17 team. Kyle Larson was the first to pilot the ride this year. He sat on the pole at Road America and finished second in the team’s first start in the Xfinity Series since 2009. William Byron will drive the car at Watkins Glen International on Aug. 20 in the third and final start for the organization this season. Competition development manager Kevin Meendering is serving as the team’s crew chief.
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The organization has tallied 26 wins in the Xfinity Series with Tony Stewart earning the last win-to-date for the team in 2009 at Daytona International Speedway. The No. 17 car number for the Xfinity races carries special significance to the Hendrick Motorsports family as it was the number that the late Ricky Hendrick drove over two seasons in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series from 2000 to 2001. The paint scheme is based on the truck he drove those seasons, including in his win at Kansas Speedway.
Tune in to watch Bowman and the No. 17 team battle on Saturday at The Brickyard at 3:30 p.m. ET on NBC, IMS Radio Network and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (channel 90).