Race tracks where a NASCAR Cup driver is good or bad at can change in a “heartbeat.”
That’s the view of Hendrick Motorsports’ Alex Bowman.
He should know. When he first arrived in the Cup Series with NASCAR’s top team, he didn’t consider himself adept at Martinsville Speedway, Richmond Raceway or Dover Motor Speedway.
But five years into his full-time career with Hendrick, Bowman is a winner at all of those tracks.
“I feel like the places that were tough on me at first I’ve gotten better at and then some places that we were really successful out right off the bat we’ve struggled at lately,” Bowman told SPEED SPORT. “So it’s kind of interesting. I feel like it flip flops from year-to-year. The last couple years, we’ve been extremely strong at Martinsville. And then this year, we were not very good. So it can change in a heartbeat .. Definitely can feel like it’s always changing and always evolving.”
Dover, where the NASCAR Cup Series visits this weekend, is one of his best tracks now.
Bowman is the defending winner there and has finished in the top five in four of the last five races at the 1-mile track.
But his success at the “Monster Mile” didn’t come without some help. He thankfully was teammates with Jimmie Johnson, an 11-time winner at Dover, during his first two seasons at Hendrick.
“The last couple years, we’ve been extremely strong,” Bowman said. “The thing that clicked was a conversation with Jimmie Johnson about how to approach the place. I struggled there really badly at first with HMS. Chase (Elliott) would be really strong and I would be really not strong. And Jimmie has obviously had a ton of success there. So being able to lean on him and I honestly just had one conversation after a really frustrating practice and that kind of change how I approached it. And we, aside from one race, haven’t run outside of the top five ever since then.”
What Johnson told Bowman remains classified.
“I’m gonna keep that to myself considering it has kept us in the top five,” Bowman said.
Unfortunately, Bowman considers any worthwhile advice about navigating Dover “out the window” with the introduction of the Next Gen car.
“Just a different approach and kind of a different thought process on how to approach the race track,” Bowman said. “Dover is an extremely difficult racetrack. Hard to drive, you got to really hustle the race car. It’s a long race, it’s probably the most physically demanding race of anywhere we go all year. I think the Next Gen is gonna be a handful there. …
“That is going to make the racing pretty good. Now, that’s me saying that, so the opposite will probably happen. But we’ve seen at some of the short tracks that the car just drives really well but has a ton of forward drive. That has taken away all the passing opportunities. I feel like it’ll be interesting to see. And Dover is obviously not a short track. But it’s not a mile-and-a-half either. So I think the tire is going to be a key player there for the opportunity to move around … If we don’t lay rubber down, I think it’s gonna be pretty tough. And you’re just gonna be stuck on the bottom. But we’ll have to wait and see until we go do it.”
Bowman’s victory at Dover last year is one of his seven that he’s achieved so far with Hendrick.
In fact, Bowman has seven wins at seven different tracks. He’s the active Cup Series driver with the most wins without repeating at a track.
They’ve come at Dover, Auto Club Speedway, Richmond, Martinsville, Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Chicagoland Speedway and Pocono Raceway.
For comparisons sake, Jeff Gordon won at 10 different race tracks before he repeated at Darlington. Kyle Busch won at 13 different tracks before he repeated at Bristol.
What does Bowman believe the variety of tracks he’s won at says about his ability as a driver?
“I feel like I’m a pretty diverse race car driver,” Bowman said. “And I’m continuing to become more diverse with just racing different things, like going and racing a sprint car (last) week (in New Jersey). I feel like a road course win and a superspeedway win is really all I am away from kind of winning every different style racetrack. Which we were close to getting a road course win at COTA earlier this year (he finished second). I’m just a racer, I enjoy racing anything, anytime, anywhere. …
“I’ve really just tried to, instead of being like, ‘Hey, our mile-and-a-half stuff is really good. I’m gonna super focus on our mile-and-a-half and kind of forget the rest.’ I’ve tried to really focus on the weaker programs and try to make myself better and road courses and short tracks were probably those two things for me and I feel like I’ve improved that and I’m continuing to try to improve that. Superspeedway racing is one of those that I got to fall in love with a little more to try to improve, but I’m trying anyway.”