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Alex Bowman wins Bristol pole, full Cup Series qualifying results

JHby:Jonathan Howard•about 21 hours•

Jondean25

Alex Bowman
Jasen Vinlove-Imagn Images

In a Next Gen record at Bristol, Alex Bowman laid down the fastest lap in qualifying. He will start on pole on Sunday for the Food City 500. What a lap it was from the NASCAR driver as he beat out Ricky Stenhouse Jr. for the award.

Alex Bowman put down a 14.911-second lap to secure the pole award today. He was rather early in the qualifying order, but his time held up against the rest of the field.

Is this going to be a breakout week for Bowman after a rough last two weeks? He’s going to have to manage his tires. This is the second pole of the year for Bowman, his first came at Homestead, where he finished P2.

Alex Bowman is going to start next to Ricky Stenhouse Jr. He was great in practice and qualifying in the No. 47 Hyak Motorsports Chevy. Then Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin, Ryan Blaney, Ty Gibbs, Christopher Bell, AJ Allmendinger, Carson Hocevar, and Justin Haley round out the top-10. Full results below.

The talk of the afternoon is tires. Once again, the cool temps and cloudy skies are making the Bristol Motor Speedway track eat up tires. Instead of rubber getting put down into the little divots and grooves on the track or onto the PJ1 substance, it’s being shredded.

If you watched these tires in super-slow motion, you’d probably see tire dust being sent up into the air. The marbles are deep on the top of the track. It’s looking like another tire management race.

Alex Bowman looking to get back on track

Last year, when the tire wear was insane, Alex Bowman was great. He was P4 in that race and was able to manage his tires much better than most of the field. As tomorrow’s race is shaping up to be similar, if not a repeat, Bowman has to be feeling good.

Bowman has had a really solid season. He has five finishes of P9 or better this year. Then there are the other three races… P26, P27, and P35. The last two have happened in the last two weeks at Martinsville and Darlington.

Clearly, Bowman has more speed today than he did at Martinsville. But if tires are falling off quickly, then the cars could end up handling differently very quickly as well. If Bowman’s car holds up in the long run, he will be much better off.

Alex Bowman was 8th in the 10-lap average in practice. However, practice wasn’t all it seemed. A lot of drivers were holding back, knowing those tires could rip apart and get them in trouble if they weren’t careful.