CONCORD, N.C. – Alex Bowman isn’t about to let a three-race heater go to his head, no more than he let a preceding five-race stretch that wasn't as favorable weigh him down.
Sure, he scored more points in the first round of the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs than any other driver with 120, 17 better than anyone else. And yet, to start the Round of 12 on Sunday at Kansas Speedway, he immediately finds himself seven points below the cutline, despite all that good work.
Ups and downs. Strikes and gutters.
If anyone in the playoff field is equipped to handle them, it’s Bowman, who has battled through plenty of highs and lows in recent seasons.
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“It was our job to stack up playoff points throughout the season and we didn’t do that, that’s part of it,” Bowman said. “We didn’t capitalize on that.”
Ask him a question about his success of late and he’ll respond with a cautionary statement, touching on the increasing difficulty every step toward the championship race at Phoenix Raceway on Nov. 10.
Ask him about external noise surrounding his place in the sport and he’ll quickly shrug it off. Each answer is wrapped up with a restatement of purpose, with himself and his No. 48 Ally Chevrolet team focused only on what’s ahead.
“I’d say the confidence is high right now, for sure, but this sport, it ebbs and flows so much,” Bowman said. “I think our cars are really good right now and we’re working really well right now, we just have to keep that up.”
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It’s veteran savvy, the kind more befitting his 10 seasons over 11 years in the Cup Series than his relative youth at age 31. But years aren’t always representative of experience and the perspective that comes with it and Bowman has overcome enough adversity in the past couple of seasons alone to match most careers.
First, there were the well-documented injuries. A concussion cost him five playoff races and resulted in his elimination in the Round of 12 in 2022. Last year, came a fractured vertebrae after a crash in a sprint car, sidelining him for three more events in the spring.
Those setbacks also cost invaluable time in the Next Gen car as the rest of the Cup Series field adapted to lower horsepower, larger wheelbases and the plethora of other nuances that have changed the driving demands in NASCAR’s premier series.
Also, at the beginning of last year, Blake Harris took over as the team’s crew chief.
While building a rapport, fighting through the pain that comes with rehabbing and trying to play catch up on a new race car, the rest of 2023 didn't go according to plan for Bowman. This year has had its highs, most notably a win in the Chicago Street Race and 14 top 10s, matching the rest of his Hendrick Motorsports teammates.
But there have been lows as well, primarily stretches of tough finishes and bad luck. Yet, it sure seems like a possibility with his most recent surge - at the perfect time and under playoff pressure, mind you - that maybe Bowman and the No. 48 Ally Racing team are back in the upper echelon of race teams and this time, for good.
And that maybe, his performance throughout the first three events is no anomaly, but a precursor to greater things to come.
“I don’t want to look back and use those races (I missed) as an excuse, but it certainly wasn’t good,” Bowman said. “Yeah, it’s nice to kind of feel like we’ve overcome that stuff a little bit and feel like we’re pointed in the right direction at least.
“I feel like we’re just finally executing at the level we should be kind of across the board. I don’t know if we’ve necessarily caught up but maybe we’ve kind of figured out what I like in the Next Gen car a little bit better lately.”
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This is hardly uncharted territory for Bowman, who made the Round of 12 in each of his prior five playoff appearances. But only once has he advanced twice, finishing sixth in 2020.
In terms of the three tracks in front of him – Kansas on Sunday, Talladega Superspeedway and the Charlotte ROVAL to follow – Bowman is fully aware of the opportunity he’s presented with. He’s led more laps (183) at Kansas than any other track but two (Charlotte Motor Speedway, Phoenix Raceway) in his career. He has five top-10 finishes in his last nine drafting track starts with only one showing of worse than 16th in that span. He has the best career average finish (6.4) at the ROVAL of any active driver and has yet to finish outside the top 10 there in five starts.
Bowman knows the numbers. He also knows the volatility that awaits, especially at the last two stops.
“It just gets more difficult every round,” he said. “Even though they’re good tracks for us, it takes more points to make it, historically. I think the Round of 8 is going to take winning to make it, so, coming in without a lot of playoff points just makes it a little harder than it needs to be on us. But yeah, definitely some good tracks coming up.”
Would another great round and a trip to the Round of 8 start to silence detractors? How about making the Championship 4?
Maybe. Maybe not. Bowman is indifferent either way.
For him it’s about balance and staying present in the moment. Because as much as any driver in the field, he understands how much the next moment can change.
“I certainly don’t think (my recent performance) is going to silence anything. I don’t think there’s really much I can do in my career that’s going to silence stuff like that,” Bowman said. “But, yeah, I think for me it feels good at least to go into the first round and have three good races but at the same time, I don’t want to sit here and be like, ‘OK, we’ve had three good races. We did it.’ We’ve got to have 10 good races. We’ve just got to keep digging.”