Bowman earns top 10 finish in Kentucky

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In: Xfinity Series News

RAB Racing and the No. 99 St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, ToyotaCare Camry piloted by Alex Bowman came into the bluegrass state of Kentucky with high hopes of a good finish. Crew chief Chris Rice brought chassis No. 42 which earned RAB Racing and Bowman’s first Coors Light pole award at Texas Motor Speedway in April of this year and was the first chassis that Bowman drove for RAB Racing at Kentucky Speedway in September of 2012.

 

Thursday began the first day of on track activity with practice for the No. 99 Toyota Camry, and the team found chassis No. 42 was fast right off the trailer. Bowman was 8th quickest in the first practice session on Thursday, and showed even more speed in final practice on Friday morning with the 3rd fastest lap. This translated into a good lap in qualifying, posting the 10th fastest lap, positioning the No. 99 towards the front of the 40 car field.

 

RAB Racing and Bowman ran solidly in the top 10 for most of the Feed the Children 300, and Chris Rice positioned the team for a strong run in the closing laps only to have severe thunderstorms interrupt those plans and end the race on lap 170 out of the 200 projected laps. RAB Racing and Bowman finished the race where they started, in the 10th place position.

 

Alex Bowman: What a great run we had in the RAB Racing St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, ToyotaCare Camry this weekend at Kentucky Speedway. Chris Rice gave me one of the best cars we’ve had all season, and there’s no doubt in my mind that we could have challenged for the top 5 if the race had gone the full 300 miles. We raced hard all race long and had one of the better cars on long runs, which played into our strategy of long green flag runs throughout the race, the car really took off towards the front after 10 laps in a run. At the end of the race, we decided to go with 4 tires and gas when a lot of the other teams didn’t come down pit road, if the race would have gone those extra 30 laps we would have been in really good shape with newer tires, and enough gas to make it to the end of the race. Although we didn’t finish where this car and this team were capable of running, I’m glad we brought it home in one piece, a top 10 finish, and finally got some momentum back. I can’t wait to get to Daytona where we always run good on these big restrictor plate tracks.

 

The top 10 finish was Bowman’s third top 10 finish, and the eighth top 15 finish of the 2013 NASCAR Nationwide Series season. The finish allowed Bowman to stay in the 11th position in driver point standings, and Robby Benton maintained the 15th position in owner point standings. The next race for RAB Racing and Bowman will be the Subway Firecracker 250 on Friday July 5th at the Daytona International Speedway, the race will be televised live on ESPN.

 

RAB Racing PR

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