Alex Bowman throws major accusation at Richard Childress Racing trying to catch Austin Dillon at Richmond

Alex Bowman did his best to chase down Austin Dillon in the closing laps of Saturday’s Cook Out 400 at Richmond Raceway. Ultimately, Bowman came up short.

He believes there’s a reason for that, however. With just a few laps remaining in the race, Bowman — over his radio — accused Richard Childress Racing of race manipulation. Dillon’s RCR teammate Jesse Love, running four laps down, was in front of Bowman as he was charging towards Dillon.

“His teammate is f*cking blocking me now,” Bowman said, via Jeff Gluck of The Athletic. “This is race manipulation.”

After the race, Bowman made reference to his comment on radio. Bowman was frustrated; he felt like he had a better car than Dillon, but the breaks didn’t go his way.

“Needed some favors. I sure complained about it on the radio, but that’s just part of what we do,” Bowman told NBC Sports. “Vented a little bit but had a really good Ally 48 that last run and just burned the tires too much in lap traffic. Just didn’t get any breaks and it made me work the rears harder than I needed to. Need to be a little bit better there to get to him. I certainly think we had the better car but unfortunately didn’t get there.”

Alex Bowman misses opportunity to clinch playoff spot

Of course, part of that frustration comes from Bowman’s current playoff situation. Dillon was an unexpected first-time winner this season, meaning just two playoff spots are up for grabs in next Saturday’s race at Daytona.

Tyler Reddick is 89 points clear of the playoff cutline, 29 ahead of Bowman. If there’s a new winner at Daytona, only one of Reddick or Bowman will get into the playoffs. Both will be playoff bound if there is no new winner. For Bowman, Daytona has to be viewed as a must-win situation.

“Certainly, it’s really stressful on a lot of fronts,” Bowman said. “I mean, I think with the way that race normally goes, it’s about a must-win at that point because I think you’re most likely to have a new winner. Just need to go execute and try to win the race. That’s all we can do. Looks like we maybe can get to [Reddick]. Looks like he had a bad day. So possible there. Looks like a big gap, so… just got to go to work.

“That’s all we can do at this point. That’s what we’ve been doing, right? We’ve been doing a lot of good things. Unfortunately, just one spot short tonight. The team, clearly, we’re not very popular through the garage with that last run. Still doing a really good job and executing at a high level. Just proud of all the guys to continue to work hard and try to overcome the situation we’re in, and we’ll keep digging.”