{"id":25892,"date":"2019-05-20T15:28:29","date_gmt":"2019-05-20T20:28:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=25892"},"modified":"2019-05-20T21:37:19","modified_gmt":"2019-05-21T02:37:19","slug":"alex-bowman-is-confident-his-first-win-is-approaching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2019\/05\/20\/alex-bowman-is-confident-his-first-win-is-approaching\/","title":{"rendered":"Alex Bowman is confident his first win is approaching\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – On the brink. Oh, so close.<\/p>\n

Hendrick Motorsports driver Alex Bowman<\/strong><\/a> has heard the words and lived the sentiment.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Alex Bowman, driver of the #88 Axalta Chevrolet, pits during the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Digital Ally 400 at Kansas Speedway on May 11, 2019 in Kansas City, Kansas. (Photo by Sean Gardner\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

The 26-year old driver of the No. 88 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 has finished runner-up in the last three Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series<\/a> regular season races and is \u201cready\u201d to win doesn\u2019t even begin to describe the emotion he brings to Sunday\u2019s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway (6 p.m. ET on FOX, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).<\/p>\n

Bowman is the first driver in NASCAR\u2019s Modern Era (1972-Present) to finish second in three consecutive Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series races before having earned his first career series win.<\/p>\n

And what\u2019s especially impressive about Bowman\u2019s feat is that he has done it at three widely-different venues \u2013 from the Talladega Superspeedway 2.66-mile high banks, to the challenging Dover International Speedway\u2019s one-mile concrete oval to the Kansas Speedway 1.5-miler just before last week\u2019s All-Star break. And the Margin of Victory in each?  Equally as different \u2013 from a caution flag finish at Talladega to a 9.5-second Martin Truex Jr. runaway win at Dover to a scant 0.205-second near-miss at Kansas.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Alex Bowman, driver of the #88 Nationwide Chevrolet, sits in his car during practice for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series TicketGuardian 500 at ISM Raceway in Avondale, Arizona. (Photo by Jonathan Ferrey\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really proud of everybody at Hendrick Motorsports, our race cars are so much better than what we started the year with,” Bowman said, after his Kansas Speedway thriller. \u201cI\u2019m really appreciative.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish we were standing here with three wins in a row and things had gone differently and that be the case, but we\u2019ll keep digging.”<\/p>\n

In the Modern Era (1972-Present) drivers have finished runner-up in three consecutive races before \u2013 14 times. The last was Kyle Larson in 2017 when he was second at Atlanta, Las Vegas and Phoenix. NASCAR Hall of Famers Darrell Waltrip (1978 and 1983) and Jeff Gordon (1998 and 1999) are the only to accomplish the mark in multiple seasons.<\/p>\n

Waltrip (1983), Mark Martin (1998) along with Harry Gant (1985) scored four consecutive runner-up finishes.<\/p>\n

Waltrip\u2019s string of seconds in 1983 happened at Nashville, Tenn., Pocono, Pa., Talladega, Ala., and Michigan and then he put an exclamation mark on the run with a win the next week at Bristol, Tenn.<\/p>\n

Gant was second place four times (at Dover, Charlotte, Riverside and Pocono) and Martin was runner-up in four straight races in 1998 (at New Hampshire, Pocono, Indianapolis, and Watkins Glen). As with Bowman, Martin\u2019s mark was especially impressive considering the variety of venues \u2013 from the New Hampshire one-miler to 2.5-mile tracks in Pocono and Indy and then the Watkins Glen road course.<\/p>\n

NASCAR\u2019s all-time winningest driver Richard Petty\u2019s work in the 1975 season was especially impressive too. He bookended his three straight second-place finishes with wins. \u2026 and more second-place finishes. He won the summer race at Daytona, had three straight second-place showings at Nashville, Pocono, Talladega and then won at Michigan, was a runner-up at Darlington and won back-to-back events at Dover and North Wilkesboro – eight races in a row where he finished first or second.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the high end of some positive precedent for Bowman.<\/p>\n

Three of the 12 drivers to previously score three straight runner-up finishes \u2013 earned victories in the next race. Along with Petty, Jeff Gordon capped his second place showings with a trophy. He was runner-up at Dover, Michigan and Pocono then went on to win the next race on the Sonoma road course from the pole position.<\/p>\n

Kyle Larson similarly capped a three-race runner-up streak with a win from the pole position. Larson finished runner-up at Atlanta, Las Vegas and ISM Raceway then closed out the 2017 Western Swing with a victory at Auto Club Speedway. In all Larson scored eight runner-up finishes and four wins that season.<\/p>\n

Although understandably disappointed \u2013 even frustrated \u2013 to be so close to that career-defining first victory, Bowman has handled the situation well. He\u2019s 12th in the championship standings and his 86 laps out front have all come in the last three races. Plus, he was a career-best ninth in the Coca-Cola 600 last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s absolutely a good day for everyone at Hendrick Motorsports,” Bowman said after climbing out of the car in Kansas. \u201cWe all had really competitive cars and we really appreciate everyone\u2019s hard work to continue to build our cars and continue to get better like we have.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a really good day. My family is from here, so it would have been pretty cool. Probably the two closest times I have been to winning was my hometown and my dad\u2019s hometown, so it\u2019s just frustrating.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will get one soon.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – On the brink. Oh, so close. Hendrick Motorsports driver Alex Bowman has heard the words and lived the sentiment. The 26-year old driver of the No. 88 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 has finished runner-up in the last three Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series regular season races […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":15249,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[491,16],"class_list":["post-25892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-alex-bowman","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/MENCS-ISM-Bowman-031018.jpg?fit=4680%2C3144&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-6JC","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25892"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25892\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25895,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25892\/revisions\/25895"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}