The No. 48 team of Hendrick Motorsports fell further below the Round of 12 cutline Sunday at World Wide Technology Raceway as execution continued to be its downfall.
Videos by FanBuzz
Once again, problems during pit stops and multiple trips down pit road knocked Alex Bowman out of contention for stage points or even a top-20 finish.
"It was just really poor execution on all angles today," Bowman said after the race. "It was a bummer. I thought our No. 48 Ally Chevrolet was OK once we were kind of towards the front-half. We just struggled in the back.
"Super frustrating, but all we can do is keep digging."
The weekend started poorly for Bowman and the No. 48 team. They qualified 25th, last among the playoff teams. Bowman then remained mired outside of the top 15 during the short, 45-lap opening stage.
A strategy play put Bowman in 11th place for the next restart, and he capitalized by working his way to seventh place as the end of stage 2 approached. It appeared he would score his first stage points since Richmond in August.
This did not happen. Kyle Larson spun Ryan Blaney with six laps remaining in the stage, which brought out the caution and sent the field down pit road for tires and fuel. Bowman entered seventh but left 30th.
What happened? The jackman dropped the car before the left rear tire went on. Bowman then attempted to pull forward without the tire attached. The team had to jack the No. 48 up once again to fix the mistake, which cost several seconds.
Instead of scoring stage points, Bowman finished stage 2 in 24th place due to execution issues. Yet, the team still had 100 more laps to rebound and contend for a top-10 finish. They had speed in the No. 48 Chevrolet. They just needed to avoid mistakes.
This did not happen either. Bowman cracked the top 10 with fewer than 60 laps remaining in the race, but he received a speeding penalty while making a pit stop on Lap 207. This took away all of his track position once again.
Bowman restarted at the tail end of the field, and he remained there as the laps clicked down. He could not pass fellow playoff drivers Shane van Gisbergen or Ross Chastain before ending the day in 26th place.
This outing continued a trend for the No. 48 team, which struggled mightily during the playoff opener at Darlington Raceway last weekend.
Bowman started the Southern 500 in 29th place, and he struggled with handling early. The team kept making adjustments in hopes of getting the No. 48 back into contention, but they couldn't overcome a lack of execution on a pivotal pit stop less than 70 laps after taking the green flag.
Bowman entered his pit stall under green flag conditions, and he remained there for a full 40 seconds before departing. What happened? At first, it appeared that the air gun just malfunctioned. However, the team discovered that the air hose detached from the pit box.
Bowman lost two laps during this disastrous start, and he spent most of the race trying to gain them back. He returned to the lead lap at one point, but quickly fell back while driving a car that he described as slow. He finished 31st.
Just a sh****, unacceptable day, on all fronts," Bowman said at Darlington. "We weren't great when we unloaded, then we didn't qualify well. Got caught up in (the Josh Berry crash on Lap 1) a little bit, lost the track position we had. Just kind of fell apart from there."
The Arizona native entered the playoffs as the bottom seed after a crash at Daytona. He expressed optimism about his opportunities to advance to the Round of 12 based on how his team had performed during the regular season.
However, this lack of execution has changed the narrative. Bowman is now 35 points below the cutline heading to the Round of 16 cutoff race. He could theoretically point his way into the Round of 12 if other drivers deal with adversity, but he will likely have to win to keep his playoff hopes alive.
The team just needs to avoid the issues that have plagued them these past two races.
"There's a lot of people working really hard to continue to be better," Bowman said. "I thought, race car-wise, we were heading in the right direction once we had some air on it. We just have to go to Bristol (Motor Speedway) and go to work."
