Alex Bowman,
Successor to Dale Jr. keeps No. 88 rolling
the successor to Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the No. 88 car, wins the pole position for next Sunday’s season-opening Daytona 500 and embraces the legacy of the driver he’s replacing, writes columnist George Díaz.
DAYTONA BEACH — Three years ago, Alex Bowman came to this place and felt the squeeze of Daytona’s restrictorplate traffic. He failed to qualify after he was caught in a multi-car wreck in his duel race. By January 2016, he was out of a Cup ride.
Now Bowman has no such worries. He will start the 2018 Daytona 500 on the pole, with everyone else playing catchme-if-you-can.
“I mean, if you talked to me in 2015 and told me that in 2018 I was going to be driving the 88 car for Hendrick Motorsports, I would have called you nuts,” Bowman said Sunday afternoon. “You know, everything happens for a reason. My career had a lot of ups and downs, and I've been able to lean on my past experiences a lot to
make me better and to better prepare myself for this job.”
NASCAR’s Junior Nation must be ecstatic with the No. 88 handme-down Chevy. One day into the official start of the 2018 NASCAR season, Bowman — only 24 — already has proven worthy of taking the wheel from NASCAR’s signature star.
Earnhardt retired at the end of the 2017 season to focus on family and to walk away from health risks after dealing with multiple concussions during his career. But way before then, he had identified Bowman as a rising star and recommended him to owner Rick Hendrick.
Hendrick botched his name a few times, calling him “Alex Ballman.” But he didn’t screw up losing Bowman to somebody else. When Earnhardt dealt with concussionrelated symptoms during the 2016 season, Bowman substituted for him in the No. 88, setting up the full-time ride in ’18.
“Yeah, I mean, it was just that I'm just lucky enough to be able to hold the steering wheel in one of Mr. H's race cars,” Bowman said. “Very thankful for that opportunity.”
There is reason to believe for fans of the No. 88 come Daytona Day on Sunday. Earnhardt won six of 17 races at Daytona International Speedway in that car, including a Daytona 500 victory.
“Awesome! Great job @AlexBowman88 @TeamHendrick on the #Daytona500 pole! @Ives_Greg and the gang built a fast one,” Earnhardt tweeted Sunday afternoon.
Bowman had the fastest lap at 195.644 mph. Denny Hamlin of Joe Gibbs Racing qualified second fastest (195.092), followed by veteran Jimmie Johnson, Bowman’s teammate at Hendrick Motorsports.
Hamlin is the 2016 Daytona 500 champion but has never qualified higher in his career at Daytona.
In a qualifying grid that reflects NASCAR’s definitive push toward a younger generation of drivers, five of the top 10 fastest drivers were younger than 25, and five have never won a Cup race.
The only spots that matter at the moment, however, belong to Bowman and Hamlin. The rest of the grid will be determined in Thursday’s Can-Am Duels qualifying races.
Bowman will race with house money but also with a rising sense of fulfillment that he belongs. He has all the validation he needs from Hendrick, who provides the push and pull of grandfatherly expectations.
Translation: He likes to bust his chops.
Since Bowman said the late Tim Richmond was his NASCAR hero growing up and Richmond won eight poles in 1986, Hendrick jokingly suggested that Bowman has embraced the great expectations of winning nine poles this season.
They also engaged in a humorous riff about a drag-race challenge bet involving super-charged Corvettes in which the winner gets to keep the loser’s car.
“I sold him the one he's got,” Hendrick said. “I can sell him another one.”
“I'm pretty sure that I'm still making payments to him on the one I've got,” Bowman said. “It would be really sad to be making payments on a car that the guy has back and you're making payments to that guy.”
Even if he loses, Bowman can probably handle the finances. He’s a NASCAR Man now, at the top of his game, in the top series in the sport.
Oh, and on the pole for the Great American Race.
Well played, Mr. Ballman.