Alex Bowman is 25/1 at William Hill to win on Daytona Road Course

Bowman to Elliott: "Share some road course stuff, please."

No. 48 Ally Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE

FRONT-ROW SUCCESS: In his four DAYTONA 500 qualifying efforts with Hendrick Motorsports, Alex Bowman has sat on the front row each season. The Tucson, Arizona, native is the only driver in history to sit on the front row of “The Great American Race” in four consecutive starts. Bowman captured the pole award in 2018 and 2021 and started second in 2019 and 2020. Crew chief Greg Ives is the only crew chief in DAYTONA 500 history to earn a front row starting position in five consecutive seasons. Ives’ drivers have sat on the front row since Dale Earnhardt Jr. qualified second for the 2017 event.

DAYTONA 500 RECAP: After starting on the pole for the 63rd running of the DAYTONA 500, Bowman was running in fourth place on lap 10 and sat in third one lap later. While running the high line, the No. 48 Ally Chevrolet was collected in an incident, which ended Bowman’s day on lap 14. The team was scored with a 35th-place finish at the conclusion of the event.

ROAD-COURSE STATS: Bowman has 12 starts on road courses in the NASCAR Cup Series, which includes two top-five finishes and four top-10s. The driver of the No. 48 Camaro finished inside the top 15 in all eight of his road-course starts while driving for Hendrick Motorsports. Bowman’s average finish of 9.6 at these venues while driving for the 13-time championship organization is fourth-best among active drivers since 2018. His two top-five results came in 2018 and 2019 on the Charlotte ROVAL where he has an average finish of 4.6. Last year at the DAYTONA Road Course, Bowman rolled off 27th and finished 12th even after suffering a flat tire early in the 65-lap event. During the Clash at DAYTONA last week, the No. 48 Ally team started second following a random draw and finished seventh after 35 laps.

IVES ON A ROAD COURSE: Crew chief Ives has 14 starts on road courses in the NASCAR Cup Series. The Bark River, Michigan, native has two top-five results and six top-10s at road courses in the series. Under Ives’ leadership, Bowman has two events on the DAYTONA Road Course under his belt since last year, with the most recent outing coming last week during the Clash.

NEW YEAR, NEW LOOK: Ally Racing revamped its website for the 2021 season, giving fans a place to learn more about the No. 48 team’s pit crew members and driver Bowman. A digital hero card is available for download for fans not able to visit the track this year. Learn more about Bowman’s famous four-legged sidekicks, as well as his No. 48 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE specs. Visit the new website to learn more about the team and to purchase your 2021 gear.


QUOTES:

Alex Bowman, driver of the No. 48 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE, on returning to the DAYTONA Road Course: “Coming back to the DAYTONA Road Course this week will, hopefully, be good for our team since we just ran this course last week in the Clash. During the Clash, we were in contention for win a couple times. We had some speeding penalties but thankfully worked those out later in the week. There is a lot that we learned last week that we can definitely apply to Sunday’s race. Getting taken out of the 500 early last week, I think this Ally team needs some redemption on Sunday.”

Greg Ives, crew chief of the No. 48 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE, on using the Clash as a road-course blueprint: “We are fortunate to have the experience of running the Clash. We know we have a good road-course car and can fine tune some details to get it better for Alex. The Clash really gave us a better understanding of what we are needing to do to improve the car. I am dreading seeing what calculation decides where we will start, since our DAYTONA 500 finish was not where we needed to finish. All in all, we have a good car and we have to be smart.”


ODDS & MICAH ROBERTS' THOUGHTS & PREDICTION:

8th #48 Alex Bowman (25/1) - He was seventh two weeks ago in the Busch Clash at Daytona and the reason you take him is because he should have similar equipment to teammate Chase Elliott. In his last nine road course starts driving for Hendrick Motorsports his worst finish was 14th and his best was second (Charlotte, 2019).