Bowman Focused On Dover

Alex Bowman

48 ALEX BOWMAN

Age: 31 (April 25, 1993)

Hometown: Tucson, Arizona

Resides: Concord, North Carolina

Crew Chief: Blake Harris

Standings: 10th

No. 48 Ally Chevrolet Camaro ZL1

Alex Bowman, driver of the No. 48 Ally Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, will be available to members of the media in the Dover Motor Speedway media center on Saturday, April 27, at 9:15 a.m. local time.

FOUR TOP FIVES: Alex Bowman led the way for Hendrick Motorsports at Talladega Superspeedway with a fifth-place finish. This marks his fourth top-five of the season and ties him for the NASCAR Cup Series lead with five others, including Hendrick Motorsports teammates William Byron and Kyle Larson. Bowman’s four top-fives are his most through 10 races in a season. In addition to Talladega, his top-fives have come in the prestigious DAYTONA 500 (finished second) at Bristol Motor Speedway (finished fourth) and at Circuit of The Americas (finished fourth).

RISING IN THE STANDINGS: Through 10 races in the 2024 Cup Series season, Bowman and the No. 48 Ally Racing team are 10th in the driver points standings. He is in a six-way tie for the third-most top-10s this year (five). Among drivers who have started in all the points-paying races this season, Bowman ranks eighth in average finish (14.20).

CAKE AND CONFETTI: Bowman has multiple occasions to celebrate heading into this weekend at Dover Motor Speedway. On Thursday, he turns 31 years old. Bowman will start his 300th career Cup Series race on Sunday at one of his favorite tracks. Seven drivers have been victorious in their 300th premier series start. During Bowman’s eight seasons with Hendrick Motorsports (2016 and 2018-present), he has tallied seven wins, 36 top-five finishes, 84 top-10s, four pole positions and 1,307 laps led.

LEADING THE SWEEP: In 2021, Bowman drove the No. 48 Ally Chevrolet to victory lane at Dover. His win established a historic day for Hendrick Motorsports, with the team becoming the third organization (and fourth occurrence) in Cup Series history to finish 1-2-3-4 in a single event. Bowman took the checkered flag ahead of teammates Larson (second), Chase Elliott (third) and Byron (fourth). It was the first time that the organization had a four-car sweep atop the scoreboard. The victory also marked the No. 48’s series-best 12th win at the “Monster Mile.”

DOVER DATA: In Bowman’s 12 Cup Series starts at Dover, he has scored one win, five top-fives finishes (his most at any track) and 142 laps led. He has finished in the top five in all three of his most recent starts at the 1-mile track in “The First State.” The driver of the No. 48 has run the 10th-most laps in the top five (133) in the Next Gen era (since 2022) at Dover. Bowman missed last year’s race due to a back injury.

FINANCE FUN: April is Financial Literacy Month. The No. 48 team’s primary partner and online banking company, Ally, knows that financial behaviors are learned early. Earlier this month, Bowman joined Ally in its largest single-day “Adventures with Money” reading event. Together, they visited Clara Love Elementary School near Texas Motor Speedway with over 70 volunteers to reach over 900 students. Last week, Bowman, his five-person pit crew and Ally volunteers visited University Meadows Elementary School in Charlotte, North Carolina, to read books and play Jeopardy games about financial literacy with kids in the team’s local community. These readings are two of many that Ally will lead nationwide this year, educating thousands of students on the importance of financial knowledge.

PIT ROAD REPORT: The No. 48 Ally Racing pit crew ranks seventh on pit road for the fastest average four-tire stop (11.331 seconds). The five-person crew is composed of Andrew Bridgeforth (rear-tire changer), Jacob Conley (fueler), Brandon Grier (tire carrier), Allen Holman (jackman) and Donnie Tasser (front-tire changer).

AUTOGRAPHS WITH ALEX: Bowman will be active in the fan zone this weekend in Dover. He will be at the Hendrick Motorsports merchandise hauler on Sunday at 10:35 a.m. ET to sign autographs for the first 100 people to purchase a No. 48 1:24 scale die-cast this weekend. Fans can buy these die-casts on Friday, Saturday and/or Sunday until his signing (or until 100 have sold). These individuals will receive a wristband to come back for the designated autograph session time.

RESCUE A DOG IN DOVER: Looking to rescue a furry friend? Visit Brandywine Valley SPCA this weekend in Dover, Delaware. This shelter is located just 15 minutes from the track and is the beneficiary of Ally and Bowman’s donation to a Best Friends Animal Society shelter in this weekend’s race market. The 2024 season marks the fourth consecutive year in which Bowman and Ally are supporting Best Friends and their vast network of partners. Since the start of the 2022 season, the pair has been committed to a combined weekly donation of $4,800 to a Best Friends network partner local to each weekend’s race.

FABULOUS 40: In 2024, Hendrick Motorsports is celebrating its 40th anniversary. Among the categories that the organization holds the NASCAR Cup Series record for are all-time wins (306), poles (250), laps led (80,574) and championships (14).

DORTON NOMINATED: Engine builder Randy Dorton was named one of 15 nominees for the NASCAR Hall of Fame Class of 2025. Dorton served as the director of engine operations for Hendrick Motorsports up until his passing in an Oct. 24, 2004, plane accident. His development, leadership and management of the engine program had a tremendous impact on Hendrick Motorsports – both in the organization’s rise to prominence as the team to beat in the Cup Series ranks and its innovation. The Hendrick Motorsports engine department has earned 513 NASCAR national series wins. Three-time NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series champion Jack Sprague, crew chief Harry Hyde and driver Ricky Rudd are the other nominees with Hendrick Motorsports ties on the ballot. Click here to learn more about the nominee list.

HENDRICK HOMECOMING: On May 24 and 25, Hendrick Motorsports will hold “Hendrick Homecoming.” The free fan event, taking place over the same weekend as the Coca-Cola 600 and Indianapolis 500, will celebrate the organization’s 40th anniversary and feature autograph sessions with past and present drivers, games, displays, giveaways and more. For more information on the schedule of appearances (as they are announced) and how fans can register to enter the raffle for autograph sessions, click here.

WINNING TRIO: In 2024, William Byron (three wins), Chase Elliott (one win) and Kyle Larson (one win) have combined to tally five wins through the first 10 races of the season. The Concord, North Carolina, based squad has won at least five races in a year in 22 of the last 24 seasons. The five-victory start to this year is the team’s second-best start, with 2007’s seven wins through 10 races as the best start to a campaign in organizational history.

PIT POWER: Based on Racing Insights data, all four Hendrick Motorsports pit crews rank in the top seven among Cup Series teams for the fastest average four-tire pit stop. The No. 9 pit crew tops the board (10.858 seconds), followed by the No. 24 pit crew in second (11.060 seconds) and the No. 5 pit crew in third (11.088 seconds). The No. 48 pit crew is seventh (11.331 seconds).

THE FIRST STATE: Dover Motor Speedway is one of three racetracks where Hendrick Motorsports has posted more than 20 points-paying wins. The team’s 22 victories at the Delaware venue is one more than its total at Charlotte Motor Speedway and surpassed only by its 29 at Martinsville Speedway, which represents the record for wins by any team at a track. The team has won 28.57% (22 of 77) of the Cup Series races at Dover and led 7,549 laps (second only to its total at Martinsville). No other team has won more than 10 Cup Series races at the 1-mile track.

MAGNIFICENT SEVEN: Seven different drivers have contributed to Hendrick Motorsports’ Dover win total: Jimmie Johnson (11 victories), team vice chairman Jeff Gordon (five), Elliott (two), Bowman, Rudd, Geoff Bodine and Ken Schrader (one each).

MONSTER MOMENT: The “Monster Mile” is home to Hendrick Motorsports’ only sweep of the top-four finishing positions in a race. In 2021, Bowman, Larson, Elliott and Byron placed first, second, third and fourth, respectively. It marked only the fourth time in Cup Series history that any team accomplished this feat. At Titusville-Cocoa Speedway in December of 1956, Peter DePaolo Racing’s five-car effort became the first to record a top-four sweep and repeated the achievement in April of 1957 at North Wilkesboro Speedway. Forty-eight years later, Roush Fenway Racing did it in November of 2005 with four of its five entries at Homestead-Miami Speedway. In this race, Hendrick Motorsports’ percentage of laps led (95.50%; 382 of 400 laps led) is the second-most for a single event in team history. The top-four sweep is one of four times that the group has held at least the top-three spots of the final running order, with the most recent coming earlier this month at Martinsville in their 40th anniversary race.

DOVER DETAILS: Since the start of 2019, all four Hendrick Motorsports drivers are among the six active drivers with at least three top-five finishes at Dover. Bowman shares the lead in this statistical category with five top-five finishes, Elliott has four top-fives and Byron and Larson have three top-fives.

GOING STREAKING: The 14-time Cup Series championship-winning organization has two win streaks of at least three races at the concrete track in Dover, Delaware. There was a four-race win streak from September of 2013 to May of 2015 and a three-race run from September of 1995 to September of 1996. The Rick Hendrick-owned team has had a driver finish in the top 10 at this track in 24 straight races, the longest top-10 streak at the track by one organization.

Alex Bowman, driver of the No. 48 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, on racing at Dover: “I’m super excited to get to Dover (Motor Speedway). It’s my favorite race track and running my 300th (NASCAR Cup Series) start there this weekend is pretty special. That milestone is certainly something that, say 10 years ago, I wouldn’t have thought I’d be able to achieve. This race weekend in Dover was something that I was going to be excited about regardless of how Talladega (Superspeedway) went, but Talladega was good to us and our No. 48 Ally Racing team has been trending in the right direction. I’m looking forward to it and we should be in contention for a win this Sunday.”

Blake Harris, crew chief of the No. 48 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1, on preparing to run Dover for the first time with Bowman: “The team was really bummed to not have Alex (Bowman) at Dover (Motor Speedway) last year. This year will be Alex and I’s first trip there together. Alex won there in 2021 and statistically runs really strong there. Dover is probably one of his favorite tracks, so we look forward to getting on track there. We saw some good data points last year from teammates, even when he didn’t get to run. It would be great to pick up a win in Dover this weekend.”

TIL NEXT TIME, I AM STILL WORKING ON MY REDNECK!

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