Wednesday, February 19, 2020

Alex Bowman is 30/1 to win 2020 Pennzoil 400 at Las Vegas

Bowman was 11th and sixth at LVMS in 2019.
Alex Bowman on the intermediate program:
“Our intermediate program at Hendrick Motorsports is one of our best programs, other than superspeedways. Every time we go to a superspeedway like last week, we have great cars. At the end of last year, our intermediate program was our strongest, in my opinion. We had a lot of great success at those tracks last year.”

WELCOME BACK, LLUMAR: Eastman Performance Films LLC joined Hendrick Motorsports in 2018 as a primary sponsor of Alex Bowman and the No. 88 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE through 2020. The sponsorship features the LLumar brand of window film and paint protection film on board Bowman’s machine. The LLumar colors will be the paint scheme for Bowman’s Chevrolet in three events this season, with two events in Las Vegas and the March Homestead-Miami event. On Wednesday afternoon, Hendrick Motorsports and LLumar unveiled the 2020 scheme that will run starting with this weekend in Las Vegas.

BOWMAN’S STATS AT VEGAS: The 26-year-old driver of the No. 88 machine has six previous starts in the NASCAR Cup Series at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Bowman’s best qualifying effort of ninth came in the fall race in 2018 and his best finish of sixth came in the fall event in 2019. In his lone start at the track in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, he finished eighth after qualifying 18th for the 200-lap event in 2013.

1.5-MILE STATS: In the last eight events on 1.5-mile tracks, Bowman’s average finish of 7.25 was the best of all drivers. His six top-10 finishes over the last eight races are tied for the most. In the previous eight events on tracks of this size, Bowman has led a total of 177 laps.

IVES IN VEGAS: Crew chief Greg Ives has called the shots seven times at Las Vegas with two different drivers. The Bark River, Michigan, native earned his best finish of fourth with Dale Earnhardt Jr. back in 2015 at the 1.5-mile track. Last fall, Ives led Bowman to a sixth-place finish in the first race of the NASCAR playoffs. The crew chief has two starts in the Xfinity Series at the track, which includes one top-five finish with Chase Elliott in 2014 and one top-10 with Regan Smith in 2013. From 2006-12, Ives was a race engineer for the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports team. During that time, he was a part of three wins and four top-five finishes at Las Vegas.

DAYTONA 500 REWIND: Bowman rolled off second for Sunday afternoon's DAYTONA 500. Following rain showers, the event was ultimately delayed until Monday. The No. 88 team was running inside the top five by lap 50 and finished Stage 1 in the second position, earning valuable stage points to start the year. When a caution on lap 90 was shown, Ives made the call to have Bowman pit for right-side tires and fuel. After restarting 14th, Bowman reported his machine was a little free in and finished Stage 2 in the 15th position. Late into the 200-lap event, the Tucson, Arizona, native was caught up in an incident on the backstretch. The team went to work on repairs to the right front of the Chevrolet and was able to return to the track in NASCAR overtime. Bowman and the team were scored with a 24th-place finish.

THE OTHER SIDE OF BOWMAN: For the second year in a row, Bowman has teamed up with Motorsport.com to publish a monthly diary piece to talk about life both on and off the track. The Hendrick Motorsports driver’s first diary entry of 2020 was published last week and can be found here. This year, Bowman will solicit questions from fans on social media to answer in his diary piece.

 

2020 Season

  • 20th in standings
  • 1 start
  • 0 wins
  • 0 pole positions
  • 0 top-five finishes
  • 0 top-10 finish
  • 3 laps led 
 
 

Career

  • 154 starts
  • 1 wins
  • 2 pole positions
  • 10 top-five finishes
  • 26 top-10 finishes
  • 477 laps led
 
 

Track Career 

  • 6 starts
  • 0 wins
  • 0 pole position
  • 0 top-five finishes
  • 1 top-10 finish
  • 0 laps led
 

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