NASCAR: Winners And Losers From Phoenix

Winner: Alex Bowman

23-year-old Alex Bowman–a native of Tucson, Arizona–had himself a day at his home track.

After winning the first pole of his Cup Series career, Bowman was a man on a mission throughout the majority of the afternoon. He quickly zoomed out front once the green flag dropped and came back to take the lead a couple of times en route to leading 194 laps on the day.

To put that in perspective, he had led just 101 laps combined in all of his past races in the Cup Series, Xfinity Series, Truck Series and K&N Pro East and West Series.

Bowman was shuffled back in the field after a pit stop came with around 40 laps to go. He battled all the way back from 7th to 2nd in a matter of about 35 laps and he was closing in on Matt Kenseth.

However, the No. 88 car simply didn’t have enough time to catch Kenseth. A late caution came out that sent the race to overtime, but on the restart, Bowman was bumped by Kyle Busch–which got him a little loose. He entered Turn 1 as far down as he could go, but Matt Kenseth didn’t see him, and there was contact.

NASCAR waited to call the caution until Bowman had already fallen back behind the leaders. He ended up finishing the day sixth, which turned out to be his best Cup Series finish.

As a result of his great day, Bowman had to have earned some interest from teams looking to fill cars for the 2017 season. He still doesn’t have a ride for next year and has been impressive in his substitute role for Dale Earnhardt Jr.