Alex Bowman's comeback season off to a good start with fourth place finish at COTA
In hindsight, Alex Bowman's 2023 season seemed like a cruel joke.
The Tucson, Arizona native led the points early in the year with new crew chief Blake Harris before two massive penalties set the team back to ninth in the standings. While disappointing, the team was still solidly in the postseason picture.
That is, until Bowman injured his back in a sprint car racing, forcing him to miss several weeks of action.
Though the No. 48 team still had a chance to be in the playoffs after Bowman's return, the spark that lit up the shop over the first 10 weeks of the season was gone, replaced with the dark despair of a wasted season in which Bowman missed the 16 driver playoff field and showed little to no speed after coming back from injury.
His horrendous end to 2023 makes his promising start to 2024 that much better, including Sunday's fourth place finish at Circuit of The Americas, which has turned into one of Bowman's best racetracks.
The finish is Bowman's third top five finish of the season, which is more than all of his Hendrick Motorsports teammates, including Sunday's winner William Byron and Las Vegas winner Kyle Larson.
Bowman currently resides in 11th in the regular season standings after six races, 34 points above the playoff bubble. While it may not be the points lead that Bowman had at the start of last season, the speed he's shown to start 2024 is a welcoming sign to his crew, fans, and most importantly, himself.
Bowman hasn't just started the year off on the right foot, he's always quelled any doubts he had about himself as a driver, with his hot start re-asserting the fact that he belongs in the premier series of NASCAR.
While it has been over two years since Bowman's last win at Las Vegas, that win is sure to come sooner rather than later if he keeps running and finishing up front.
Even if he doesn't get that elusive victory, Bowman has done perhaps the most important thing on his agenda for the 2024 season with his solid start — prove to everyone that 2024 is a comeback season worthy of paying attention to.
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