Alex Bowman comes from the back to earn top-10 finish at his home track

There wasn't an easy path to a good finish for Alex Bowman in Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series race at Phoenix. 

A poor qualifying effort put the No. 48 car 32nd on the grid for what is the closest to a home game that Bowman can get; His hometown of Tucson, Arizona, sits less than two hours southeast of Phoenix Raceway in Avondale. 

After a disappointing conclusion to Saturday's Xfinity Series race, Bowman was on the warpath on Sunday. By the end of Stage 1, he'd climbed up to 17th. 

As the race progressed and strategy became the talk of the town, Bowman quietly picked off his competitors. When the checkered flag flew, he'd managed to earn a seventh-place finish, maximizing what could've been a rough day in the desert. 

Bowman now has three top-10 finishes through the season's first four races, with a 26th-place finish at Atlanta being the only outlier. If Bowman and crew chief Blake Harris can manage to put together better qualifying efforts, Bowman may start becoming a consistent threat to win. 

Bowman will enter the fifth race of the season at Las Vegas sixth in the Cup Series point standings, 34 points above the playoff cut line. Bowman won at Las Vegas in March of 2022, which was his only victory in NASCAR's Next-Gen car until his victory at Chicago in July of 2024.