Alex Bowman Tag

By David Morgan, Associate Editor After missing out on a trip to California wine country last season due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the NASCAR Cup Series heads back to Sonoma Raceway this weekend for Sunday’s running of the Toyota/Save Mart 350. A 12-turn technical road course situated about 30 miles north of San Francisco, Sonoma is one of seven road courses on the 2021 schedule, with Sonoma first joining the circuit back in 1989. Over the years, the course at Sonoma Raceway has gone through a few configuration changes. When theRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor Hendrick Motorsports’ sprawling campus sits in the shadows of Charlotte Motor Speedway, so it was only fitting that Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 was the place that the four-car juggernaut surpassed Petty Enterprises to be the winningest team in NASCAR Cup Series history. Petty Enterprises had been the gold standard in the Cup Series, with 268 wins over the course of a 50-year span from 1949 to 1999, including 10 championships, but the torch now passes to Hendrick Motorsports to be the standard bearer from now into theRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service CONCORD, N.C. – In dominating fashion, Kyle Larson won NASCAR’s longest race on Sunday night and in the process gave team owner Rick Hendrick a record 269th victory, most in NASCAR Cup Series history. Larson’s win in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway was the eighth of his career and his second of the season, guaranteeing the driver of the No. 5 Chevrolet a spot in the postseason Playoffs. By the time he crossed the finish line at the end of 400 laps,Read More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service You can’t call a Chase Elliott victory on a road course “unexpected,” but little else was predictable in the inaugural NASCAR Cup Series race at the Circuit of the Americas road course in Austin, Texas. After all, Elliott came to COTA having won five of the previous 10 road races, and on Sunday the EchoPark Texas Grand Prix became No. 6 after NASCAR called the race 14 laps short of the scheduled finish because of excessive standing water on the track and potential dangerRead More

By Luis Torres, Staff Writer It’s common in some forms of motorsports to see one multi-car team completely dominate the competition. What about on a single race day when every car were at their peak? For Hendrick Motorsports, they’ve done it already in the 1997 Daytona 500 with a podium sweep. Everyone knows the story about Jeff Gordon, Terry Labonte and Ricky Craven finishing in that order. They did it for Rick, who gave Gordon a phone call after winning his first of three Daytona 500s. However, HMS accomplished somethingRead More

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service Say this about Alex Bowman, the driver of the No. 48 Chevrolet has got his timing right. The Hendrick Motorsports driver took the lead off pit road following his final pit stop with 97 of 400 race laps remaining, held off the field on two more race restarts and earned his second victory of the year in Sunday’s Drydene 400 NASCAR Cup Series race at Dover (Del.) International Speedway. The win punctuated a historic Hendrick Motorsports day at the famed one-mile track, with theRead More

By David Morgan, Associate Editor After a three-race stretch of short tracks, the second quarter of the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series schedule begins with a visit to Talladega Superspeedway for Sunday’s running of the GEICO 500. The first nine races of the season have embodied unpredictability, with eight different winners in the first quarter of the season. That trend is likely to continue this weekend as superspeedway racing, especially at Talladega, is all about unpredictability. Since opening its doors in 1969, the 2.66-mile track just off Interstate 20 in Eastern AlabamaRead More

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service An emotional Alex Bowman could only shake his head and give kudos to the crew of his No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet following a dramatic victory over Denny Hamlin Sunday in the Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond Raceway. Bowman took the lead for the first time all race on a restart with 10 laps remaining and easily pulled away from Hamlin, who had been the day’s most dominant driver. Bowman’s .381-second winning margin earned the 27-year old his first victory of the season, thirdRead More

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service You can call Ryan Blaney “The Spoiler.” With a pass for the lead with eight laps left in Sunday’s Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Blaney took the air out of an otherwise dominating performance by Kyle Larson, who had to settle for second place after winning the first two stages and leading 269 of 325 laps. “Gosh, we had a great long-run car all day,” Blaney said after climbing from his No. 12 Team Penske Ford. “It took us aRead More

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – For the second consecutive week, Daytona International Speedway crowned a first time NASCAR Cup Series race winner. Joe Gibbs Racing driver, Christopher Bell, earned the honor Sunday on the track’s road course, taking the lead from Joey Logano with two laps to go and pulling away to a comfortable 2.119-second victory over the former series champion. Bell, 26, is the 2017 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series champion and this is his second season at the premier level – his firstRead More