Alex Bowman airs out frustrations after 's**t' day at Gateway

Alex Bowman was blunt when describing his performance at World Wide Technology Raceway on Sunday. He wasn’t exactly satisfied with the effort the No. 48 Chevrolet team brought to the track.

“Shit. Just really poor execution on all angles,” Bowman told Kelly Crandall of RACER. His P26 finish has him in what’s seemingly a must-win situation for him at Bristol Motor Speedway in the final race of the Round of 16.

Whether or not Bowman’s team can execute in Tennessee remains to be seen. It hasn’t been pretty at times this season, and they still don’t have a win, but perhaps having their backs up against the wall could change things a bit for the Hendrick Motorsports wheelman.

“Our speed was okay once we got out in the clean air after the field. But in dirty air, it was just really bad. And honestly, we just kept putting ourselves in dirty air every time,” Bowman stated, via Tim Moore of Motorsports Today. “I know I pulled a steering wheel and pedals, but I didn’t speed on my side—it wasn’t like I lit up my lights too hard.

“So, yeah, I’m frustrated. We just can’t execute to save our lives right now. It’s pretty embarrassing, but all we can do is move on to next week. … We’ve just gotta go to work.”

Moreover, Bowman couldn’t find the handling for his No. 48 Chevrolet during the first half of the race at Gateway. Over the back-half, his team began figuring it out, but Bowman was tagged with a speeding penalty during the race’s final caution.

That led to him restarting on the tail-end of the lead lap cars, and he could only get back up to P26 in the final laps. Now, he’s 35 points below the playoff cutline heading into Bristol.

“All we can do is keep digging,” Bowman added, via Catchfence. “There’s a lot of people working really hard to continue to be better. 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.”

In the past, Bowman has been fast at Bristol. He’s sat on the pole during the last two trips to the short-track for the NASCAR Cup Series.

A win would be a major boost for the No. 48 team, but history isn’t on their side. We’ll see if they can get the job done in upset fashion this time around.