Bowman Breaks 80-Race Winless Streak in Time-Shortened Race in Chicago – Motorsports Tribune

By David Morgan, Associate Editor

CHICAGO – Bowman is back.

It has been a long road for Alex Bowman since he last visited Victory Lane in the NASCAR Cup Series, but he’ll have to wait no more after winning Sunday’s NASCAR Chicago Street Race to break a winless streak dating back some 80 races.

Since that win in March 2022 at Las Vegas, the driver of the No. 48 Chevrolet has been through a lot, including a concussion that sidelined him for a number of races that same year, as well as a sprint car crash the following spring. Since then, Bowman has been striving to equal his Hendrick Motorsports teammates, but had fallen short.

Until now.

With the oddity of a one hour, 43-minute red flag for rain that transformed what was scheduled to be a 75-lap race around Grant Park in Chicago to a timed event with a deadline of 8:20 pm local time, Bowman and his team used a strategy play to get them in position to strike and Bowman did the rest.

At the end of the second stage, there was a decision to be made – stay on the wet weather tires for the final run to the finish or pit for slicks and hope you can make up the ground against those that stay out.

Leaders at the time, Ty Gibbs and Christopher Bell, elected to go with the former, while Joey Hand and Bowman stayed out on the wets through the end of the stage.

When the final stage restarted with approximately 15 minutes to go, Hand, the sports car ace, held the lead, but Bowman was hungry for a win, filling his mirror in each turn as they worked their way around the course, clicking away laps and the time clock counting down to the deadline.

On Lap 51 and approximately 12 minutes remaining, Bowman made his move, diving low on Hand in Turn 4 to secure the lead.

But it wasn’t over yet.

Shortly thereafter, the caution flag flew for Josh Berry in Turn 2, setting up one final restart with less than five minutes to go on the countdown clock.

Once the green flag flew for the final time, Bowman pulled out to a secure lead over hand and seemed to have the race in the bag as long as he was able to run out the remaining laps in one piece.

Despite cars spinning every which way in seemingly every corner, the race stayed green, but a new challenger emerged in Tyler Reddick, who was one of the drivers that decided to pit for slicks at the end of Stage 2.

Reddick was chewing up the distance between himself and Bowman lap after lap, climbing from outside the top-10 up to second…