1 week agoHendrick Motorsports driver Alex Bowman will start third for this week's Cook Out 400 at Martinsville Speedway. Bowman is one of the three Hendrick drivers to start inside the top five for this week's race. In 17 starts at Martinsville, Bowman has one win, five top-10 finishes, and an average finish of 18.5. In six races so far this season, Bowman leads all drivers with five top-10 finishes and has led in four different Cup events. In practice, Bowman ranked 11th in overall lap averages while failing to rank in the top 10 in all other categories on speed. Bowman has been consistent like no other driver this season, meaning that he is worth at least a small number of exposure in DFS lineups, but works best in tournaments due to low upside and his Martinsville history being decent at best.
--Sean Engel - RotoBallerSource: DriverAverages.com
2 weeks agoAlex Bowman of Hendrick Motorsports finished second as the runner-up for the Straight Talk Wireless 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Starting from the pole position, Bowman led the first couple of laps until Ryan Blaney passed him for the lead. The No. 48 Chevrolet driver spent the rest of the stage battling to stay in the top five but ultimately finished second at the end of the stage, earning significant stage points. In the second stage, Bowman continued to run well and once again inherited the lead early before getting passed by Blaney. Bowman spent the rest of the stage fighting to stay inside the top five but ultimately fell back to sixth by the end of stage two. In the final stage, Bowman finally made it back to the lead for the longest period, overtaking Bubba Wallace and holding onto the lead until six laps to go. Bowman was trying to hold off teammate Kyle Larson by racing high up towards the wall, but he grazed it and lost enough speed for Larson to pass him. Bowman settled for second, setting a new career-best finish at Homestead in the process.
--Sean Engel - RotoBallerSource: NASCAR.com
2 weeks agoAfter a long run of consistent finishes in races where he has otherwise mostly been a non-factor, Alex Bowman earned his first pole on a non-drafting superspeedway for Sunday's Straight Talk Wireless 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Although you'd think Homestead would be one of his absolute best tracks since it is similar to Chicagoland, Kansas, and Las Vegas -- where he's either won and/or run well before -- Bowman has never led there or finished better than seventh. Both of those will likely change since Bowman seems faster than he has in years, and in last week's Las Vegas race, he made a pass for the lead and recovered from a flat tire to drive up to seventh. If he has no bad luck with the consistency he's had, a top-five finish almost seems likely, but he's probably not going to win. Bowman has a lot of DFS value if you think he's going to dominate the race, but more likely he won't lead after the end of Stage 1.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
3 weeks agoAlex Bowman started sixth and finished seventh at Las Vegas, so you might figure he had his typical run-of-the-mill run where he ran in the back half of the top 10 of the race without really contending, but his run was actually a lot stronger than that. Bowman led two laps early after passing Austin Cindric after the first restart before Cindric repassed him, but then while running fifth on Lap 90, he pitted for a loose wheel and fell to 35th. He gained considerably after staying out of the pits on the eighth caution and quickly re-entered the top 10 for good after that, running as high as fourth in the latter stages. It remains to be seen whether he will have the speed to dominate a race again (which he hasn't for a while), but Sunday was an encouraging sign.
--Sean Wrona - RotoBallerSource: Racing Reference
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