Bowman Breaks 80-Race Winless Streak in Time-Shortened Race in Chicago

By David Morgan, Associate Editor

CHICAGO – Bowman is back.

It has been a long road for Alex Bowman since he last visited Victory Lane in the NASCAR Cup Series, but he’ll have to wait no more after winning Sunday’s NASCAR Chicago Street Race to break a winless streak dating back some 80 races.

Since that win in March 2022 at Las Vegas, the driver of the No. 48 Chevrolet has been through a lot, including a concussion that sidelined him for a number of races that same year, as well as a sprint car crash the following spring. Since then, Bowman has been striving to equal his Hendrick Motorsports teammates, but had fallen short.

Until now.

With the oddity of a one hour, 43-minute red flag for rain that transformed what was scheduled to be a 75-lap race around Grant Park in Chicago to a timed event with a deadline of 8:20 pm local time, Bowman and his team used a strategy play to get them in position to strike and Bowman did the rest.

At the end of the second stage, there was a decision to be made – stay on the wet weather tires for the final run to the finish or pit for slicks and hope you can make up the ground against those that stay out.

Leaders at the time, Ty Gibbs and Christopher Bell, elected to go with the former, while Joey Hand and Bowman stayed out on the wets through the end of the stage.

When the final stage restarted with approximately 15 minutes to go, Hand, the sports car ace, held the lead, but Bowman was hungry for a win, filling his mirror in each turn as they worked their way around the course, clicking away laps and the time clock counting down to the deadline.

On Lap 51 and approximately 12 minutes remaining, Bowman made his move, diving low on Hand in Turn 4 to secure the lead.

But it wasn’t over yet.

Shortly thereafter, the caution flag flew for Josh Berry in Turn 2, setting up one final restart with less than five minutes to go on the countdown clock.

Once the green flag flew for the final time, Bowman pulled out to a secure lead over hand and seemed to have the race in the bag as long as he was able to run out the remaining laps in one piece.

Despite cars spinning every which way in seemingly every corner, the race stayed green, but a new challenger emerged in Tyler Reddick, who was one of the drivers that decided to pit for slicks at the end of Stage 2.

Reddick was chewing up the distance between himself and Bowman lap after lap, climbing from outside the top-10 up to second place. It appeared to only be a matter of time before he would be at Bowman’s bumper and the two would have to battle it out for the win.

However, Bowman caught a break when Reddick got into the wall on the final lap as he was chasing Bowman down, eventually falling some three seconds back.

From there on out, Bowman was able to get back around to the flag, securing the win and lifting a huge weight off his back.

Once again, he was a NASCAR Cup Series winner. And you better bet he’s going to celebrate it to the fullest.

The pass that ended the drought. #NASCARChicago pic.twitter.com/WMlPdcVHg0

— NASCAR (@NASCAR) July 8, 2024

“Anytime you go to the racetrack with Hendrick Motorsports, you’ve got a shot,” Bowman said.

“We have a trophy to take home, and know it means a lot to this team. They put me in position to win the race.

“Man, I broke my back, had a brain injury, and we’ve kind of sucked ever since, and I didn’t — you start to second-guess if you’re ever going to get a chance to win a race again.

“Last one we won, we didn’t really get to celebrate. We’re going to drink so much damn bourbon tonight, it’s going to be a bad deal. I’m probably going to wake up naked on the bathroom floor again. That’s just part of this deal sometimes.

“Just thanks to Ally and everybody at Hendrick Motorsports, everybody that makes this deal go round.”

For Bowman, the theatrics didn’t stop when the checkered flag flew as Bubba Wallace showed his displeasure with him for an incident the two had earlier in the race prior to the rain delay. As he circulated on his cool down lap, Wallace came by and side-swiped him, but it was no harm, no foul for Bowman.

Bowman acknowledged the incident afterwards, shouldering the blame for the run-in he and Wallace had earlier in the race and apologized for it.

“I have to apologize again to the 23 guys. Just messed up, trying to get my windshield wiper on, missed a corner and ruined their day. I hate that. I’m still embarrassed about it.”

BUBBA WALLACE DOORSLAMMED ALEX BOWMAN. 😳

The No. 48 spun the No. 23 earlier in the race. #NASCAR pic.twitter.com/C9GP93C4zC

— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) July 8, 2024

After his last lap brush with the wall, it was a game of what if for Reddick, who looked to have the pace to chase down Bowman and surpass him, but he would have to settle for second-place instead.

“I’m upset,” Reddick said. “I was catching Alex (Bowman) by a large margin there. I don’t know. That puzzles me. I clearly just screwed up. Trying to stay in the dry groove and I had more than enough room of dry groove. Yeah, I cut the wheel a little too hard — just not focused enough, I guess.

“I knew I was going to get to him and the earlier I could get to him the more options I would have, and it was going to get a little bit more slick off line beyond turn 8. Yeah, just didn’t even give ourselves a shot to race him unfortunately. I hate it. Not what this Jordan Brand Toyota Camry is about and what this team is about. Just got to start capitalizing on these ones.”

Ty Gibbs was able to rebound to third at the finish, with Joey Hand scoring a career-best fourth for the RFK Stage 60 program, and Michael McDowell recovering from an errant strategy call early in the race to round out the top-five finishers.

Christopher Bell, who looked to be one of the favorites prior to the end of the second stage, would finish the day back in 37^th place after getting wrecked with three laps to go. For the second year in a row at Chicago, Bell had a strong effort with nothing to show for it at the end of the day.

Coming into the race, both Shane van Gisbergen and Kyle Larson were the presumptive favorites to take home the win, with van Gisbergen looking for the weekend sweep to keep his Chicago winning sweep alive and Larson aiming to add another win to his already impressive resume.

However, the chaos of the rain in the early part of the second stage saw his chances erased when contact from Chase Briscoe sent him into the concrete wall on the outside of Turn 6, ending his day well short of the finish. He would be credited with a 40^th place result.

Larson, naturally became the driver that everyone was watching from that point, but shortly after the race resumed from the rain delay, he too found problems when Turn 6 once again became calamity corner.

Now Larson gets into the tire barrier! #NASCARChicago pic.twitter.com/9jhMTLFNZq

— NASCAR (@NASCAR) July 8, 2024

Coming into the left-hander, Larson locked up under braking, sending him into a four wheel slide head on into the tire barrier, leaving him buried windshield deep. Though he was able to pull out under power, the damage was just too much for him to be able to continue and retired a short time later.

“I assume I just locked it up. As soon as I hit the brakes, it was not slowing down. I was just going to try and end up wherever I ended up. But yeah, it smashed the car up pretty good. It’s just unfortunate..

“I’m bummed. It just caught me off guard. You push the brake zones a little bit more each lap as you’re getting more comfortable, but it just surprised me.”

NASCAR Chicago Street Race Results

Fin	Str	Vehicle	Driver	Team	Laps	Status
1	8	48	Alex Bowman	Ally Chevrolet	58	Running
2	4	45	Tyler Reddick	Jordan Brand Toyota	58	Running
3	2	54	Ty Gibbs	Monster Energy Toyota	58	Running
4	38	60	* Joey Hand	BuildSubmarines.com Ford	58	Running
5	3	34	Michael McDowell	Chicago White Sox Ford	58	Running
6	33	47	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.	Mariano’s/Colgate Optic White Chevrolet	58	Running
7	26	38	Todd Gilliland	gener8tor Ford	58	Running
8	27	24	William Byron	Relay Payments Chevrolet	58	Running
9	19	8	Kyle Busch	zone Chevrolet	58	Running
10	17	12	Ryan Blaney	Menards/Dutch Boy Ford	58	Running
11	9	99	Daniel Suarez	Jockey x Folds of Honor Chevrolet	58	Running
12	35	31	Daniel Hemric	Cirkul Chevrolet	58	Running
13	6	23	Bubba Wallace	McDonald’s Toyota	58	Running
14	28	10	Noah Gragson	Bass Pro Shops Winchester Ford	58	Running
15	21	2	Austin Cindric	Discount Tire Ford	58	Running
16	23	51	Justin Haley	Pinnacle Home Improvement Ford	58	Running
17	30	71	Zane Smith #	Focused Health Chevrolet	58	Running
18	10	6	Brad Keselowski	Elk Grove Village Ford	58	Running
19	15	3	Austin Dillon	Get Bioethanol Chevrolet	58	Running
20	16	17	Chris Buescher	Fastenal Ford	58	Running
21	18	9	Chase Elliott	NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet	58	Running
22	14	1	Ross Chastain	Busch Light Peach Chevrolet	58	Running
23	32	22	Joey Logano	Shell Pennzoil Ford	58	Running
24	13	77	Carson Hocevar #	Zeigler Auto Group Chevrolet	58	Running
25	31	21	Harrison Burton	Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford	58	Running
26	40	15	Kaz Grala #	Remixers.com/Meat n’ Bone Ford	58	Running
27	20	7	Corey LaJoie	Celsius Chevrolet	58	Running
28	39	66	* Josh Bilicki(i)	Purekick Hydration Ford	58	Running
29	25	43	Erik Jones	AdventHealth Toyota	58	Running
30	11	11	Denny Hamlin	Sport Clips Haircuts Toyota	58	Running
31	34	33	* Austin Hill(i)	United Rentals Chevrolet	58	Running
32	22	14	Chase Briscoe	Mahindra Compact Tractors Ford	58	Running
33	24	19	Martin Truex Jr.	Bass Pro Shops Toyota	58	Running
34	29	41	Ryan Preece	HaasTooling.com Ford	58	Running
35	12	42	John Hunter Nemechek	Dollar Tree Toyota	57	Running
36	36	4	Josh Berry #	Overstock.com Ford	57	Running
37	7	20	Christopher Bell	CRAFTSMAN Racing For A Miracle Toyota	55	Accident
38	37	13	* AJ Allmendinger(i)	Benesch Chevrolet	48	Accident
39	1	5	Kyle Larson	Valvoline Chevrolet	33	Accident
40	5	16	Shane Van Gisbergen(i)	Wendy’s Saucy Nuggs Chevrolet	24	Accident