Alex Bowman finishes 13th in wild Talladega finish

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In: Xfinity Series News

Alex Bowman and the #99 RAB Racing, SchoolTipline.com Toyota Camry headed into Talladega relaxed and confident of a good finish with a 3rd place finish at the last super speedway race. “Our super speedway program is one of the best in the garage,” said crew chief Chris Rice. “It’s all because of the hard work that TRD puts into these race cars, the wind tunnel time they provide us, and our great engines provided to us by Joe Gibbs Racing Engines.”

 

Practice began on Thursday with a new concentration for the RAB Racing Toyota Camry, as they solely focused on single car runs with no drafting help, which placed them 26th. In qualifying that work paid off with a 14th place starting position.

 

Saturday’s Aaron’s 312 race was delayed by rain but started only a few hours after its scheduled time, this only fueled the anticipation in the garage and for the drivers. While dodging multiple wrecks, and running in the top 10 all race long, a controversial finish put Bowman in 13th place, winning the Sunoco Rookie of the Race. Bowman also moved up two positions in the driver point standings to 9th and leads the Sunoco Rookie of the Year standings once again, with Robby Benton moving into the 13th position in owner’s points.

 

Chris Rice: “I was extremely pleased on how our car ran this weekend, we showed we had speed everywhere we ran, and it all started on Thursday in practice. We primarily ran by ourselves to get our car setup correct, work on our raw speed when we were out in clean air, and work on some development ideas for later in the year. As you know super speedway racing is almost completely out of the team’s hands and put into the driver’s hands on how he works the draft and who he works with. With that I’m extremely proud of Alex, and how he worked with our Toyota teammate Parker Kligerman during the course of the race. I hate how our finish doesn’t reflect how we competed for the win at the end of the race, but the competition definitely knew we were there.

 

Alex Bowman: “What a day, we should have finished where we ran for most of the last half of the race, in the top 5. The finishes of these super speedway races are just always unpredictable and this race was no different, coupled with the last 20 laps run in dark conditions, we all knew something big was going to happen, visibility was extremely poor. Above all else, I need to thank RAB Racing for building safe cars, we had a big impact there at the end but we were able to cross the finish line as the highest finishing rookie.

 

RAB Racing PR

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