NASCAR insiders react to Alex Bowman disaster day at Gateway, must-win Bristol playoff race

Anything that can go wrong, has gone wrong for Alex Bowman in the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs. The common theme at both Darlington and Gateway was pit road mistakes.

He called a P31 run at Darlington 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. He heads into Saturday’s Round of 16 finale at Bristol -35 below the cutline, facing what Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic called a “must-win position.”

“Bowman’s in a must-win position. Too many guys to hop, too many things have to happen. He’s in a must-win position,” Bianchi said on The Teardown podcast. “But I don’t think you can trust Alex Bowman and that team to have a complete race where they’re going to go out and win. … If you’re a fan of Alex Bowman and your driver is making a pit stop, do you have any confidence whatsoever that your driver is going to get off pit road without an incident? No.”

Alex Bowman, No. 48 make major changes ahead of Bristol

With Bowman’s championship hopes on life support, Hendrick Motorsports is going with an all hands on deck approach to get the No. 48 team into the next round. Hendrick is swapping most of the Spire Motorsports No. 77 team pit crew over to the No. 48 team for Bristol.

The No. 77 pit crew was the fastest Hendrick-trained pit crew 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.

Bowman and the No. 48 team will hope for better results on pit road at Bristol. Anything short of a win won’t erase what has been a disastrous two weeks.

“This round is all about being mistake free — and really the playoffs are — but really this round especially because of the number of drivers that are in,” Bianchi said. “It’s about not making mistakes. It’s about letting your competition take a shotgun to their foot and blow it off and you’re just like, cool, dude, have a good day, peace out. Instead, the 48 team has taken multiple shotguns to their feet, and you can’t do that. It’s just about surviving and advancing and they’re not surviving and they’re not going to advance.”

Jeff Gluck of The Athletic agreed with Bianchi that Bowman needs to win to advance to the Round of 12. He isn’t optimistic about his chances.

“To think you’re going to go to the Bristol Night Race and win is quite the long shot,” Gluck said. “Is it impossible? No, but it’s going to be pretty tough.”