By Sarah Handy, Staff Writer
In this week’s edition of Flashback Friday, Kickin’ The Tires relives when NASCAR driver Alex Bowman scored his first career win in the NASCAR Xfinity Series Drive for the Cure 300 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Bowman’s win came on October 7, 2017 in the No. 42 HendrickCars.com / Vannoy Construction Chevrolet for Chip Ganassi Racing.
Alex Bowman was making his first start of the season in the NASCAR Xfinity Series in Chip Ganassi Racing’s No. 42
Bowman, who hadn’t raced since he did a double-header the previous season at Homestead-Miami Speedway went on to lead the final 32 laps and finish 1.390 seconds ahead of second-place runner up Sam Hornish Jr.
“It’s a dream come true,” said Bowman. “I’ve got to thank Mr. Hendrick and Chip and everybody that made this possible. It’s been a long time since I’ve raced, so to come here and be as competitive as we were all night, even until that last restart, I was really pleased with how competitive we were.”
It was an event plagued by rain earlier in the day and wound up starting five hours late.
However, Bowman who was signed to take over the No. 88 Chevrolet for Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Hendrick Motorsports the following season (2018) came out on top of the podium to score his first victory in the series in his 51st start in Xfinity Series competition.
Career Update:
Following his first win in the NASCAR Xfinity Series at Charlotte, Bowman went o to run one more NXS race in 2017, finishing 8th at Phoenix in the No. 42 Chevrolet for Chip Ganassi Racing.
Bowman joined powerhouse Hendrick Motorsports full-time starting with the 2018 and remains with the team today.
The Phoenix native scored his first win in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series at Chicagoland Speedway back in June in the 2019 Camping World 400. Bowman led for 88 laps and with the victory locked himself into the playoffs for the Championship.
Thus far in 2019, Bowman has one win, four Top-5s, eight Top-10s and has led for 182 laps in 27 starts.
