Alex Bowman, No. 48 team making drastic changes to pit crew ahead of Round of 16 finale at Bristol
With their championship hopes on life support, Alex Bowman and the Hendrick Motorsports No. 48 team are making big changes ahead of Saturday’s Round of 16 finale at Bristol Motor Speedway. Hendrick is swapping most of the Spire Motorsports No. 77 team pit crew over to the No. 48 team for Bristol, according to Bozi Tatarevic.
The No. 77 pit crew was the fastest Hendrick-trained pit crew in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Gateway, and third fastest overall. Bowman’s No. 48 pit crew was 28th. Spire leases pit crews from Hendrick, which has final say on where pit crew members are placed.
With Bowman 15th in the playoff standings and -35 below the cutline, Hendrick is going with an all hands on deck approach to get the No. 48 team into the next round. To do that, Bowman will need to win.
Alex Bowman off to rocky start in NASCAR Cup Series playoffs
Bowman narrowly made his way into the postseason and his performance in the opening two races has been underwhelming, to say the least. He called a P31 run at Darlington Raceway a “sh*tty, unacceptable day on all fronts.” Pit road was an issue for Bowman in that one; at one point, they had a 40-second pit stop. He followed that up with a P26 effort at Gateway. Once again, pit road was a problem for the No. 48 team.
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“It was just really poor execution on all angles today. It was a bummer,” Bowman said after the race. “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.
“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 and go to work.”
Bowman’s team will look a bit different at Bristol. He has never won at Bristol, though he has two top 10s in his last three starts at the short track.