(Photo: Nigel Kinrade Photography
By Aaron Bearden
After each NASCAR Cup Series race, Motorsports Beat will share a piece breaking down the stories and takeaways from the weekend. This is a report on the Toyota Owners 400 from Richmond Raceway.
NASCAR Cup Series
Who Won?
Alex Bowman. A sneaky late surge to the front on a short run netted Bowman his first win in the No. 48 and a berth in the 2021 playoffs.
Top Stories
High emotions
When Alex Bowman took the checkered flag on Sunday, the expected reaction for him was one of excited joy. He’d just snagged a win seemingly out of thin air, going from half a lap down 20 minutes before the finish to the front after a large caution and timely surge to first. It came at a time when he’d entered the race 17th in points, taking him from a playoff risk to a likely postseason lock.
Bowman’s burnout seemed to express the anticipated excitement. But when he climbed out of his No. 48 Chevrolet, the Arizona native had tears in his eyes.
You see, Sunday’s win was a big moment for Bowman. But there was much more to it than a normal victory.
This was an opportunity to bring his team together and pay homage to a fallen friend.
In the early part of the offseason, days after many in the NASCAR garage returned from Phoenix Raceway and settled into the quiet obscurity of home, tragic news arrived from Hendrick Motorsports. Tire carrier William “Rowdy” Harrell and his wife, Blakley, were killed in a Florida car crash three days after their wedding in Florida.
The news was devastating to those within the pair’s circle, and primarily the then-No. 88 team.
Sure, the quiet distance of the offseason allowed the story to fade into the background, resurfacing only with the heartbreaking news that Harrell had been drinking before the accident. As an industry that’s accustomed to dealing with loss and injury perhaps more than any other, the motorsports world quietly put its collective head down and marched on.
But Harrell’s memory stayed fresh with Bowman and his group. They rebranded to the No. 48 team as part of a number shuffle after Jimmie Johnson’s retirement, but didn’t forget about the past while marching into the future.
On a day when Johnson was making his NTT IndyCar Series debut a few hours down the road in Alabama, Bowman brought the No. 48 Chevrolet to victory lane in a Cup points race for the first time in nearly four years.
He dedicated the win to Harrell.
"This one's for Rowdy and his family."
An emotional @Alex_Bowman reacts to today's win. pic.twitter.com/ziHOTMSDRc
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) April 18, 2021
“Our group has a lot of personalities, a lot of awkward people, I guess,” Bowman said. “Greg (Ives, crew chief) and myself are a bit awkward. We have some normal personalities.
“Rowdy was that big, outgoing personality that really kept the group pumped up in any situation, really held us all together. He was always happy, no matter what the circumstance was.
“He meant a ton to our race team. He’s probably the first guy when I filled in in the 88 back in the day to really make me feel super welcome, feel like he had my back. He was just a huge part of our team.”
Harrell arrived in NASCAR from the small town of Moundville, Alabama, having worked his way into a position on the University of Alabama football team in college and carrying that intense work ethic and drive to succeed right into his racing endeavors. That endeared him to Hendrick Motorsports, landing Harrell and job with one of the sport’s top teams and starting a bond that carries on today.
He’s gone. Winning a race won’t change that. But his legacy continues to drive the No. 48 team each week – even as the emotional challenge of his loss remains fresh.
“It’s been hard.,” Ives said. “Every morning we wake up, we’re reminded of the energy that he brought to the team. We just try to bring part of that, that will to never give up.
“I think you saw in Victory Lane how emotional Alex was about it. I think every lap he runs, that’s on his mind, to drive him, to motivate him, to never give up as Rowdy was, give 100%. It’s a special win for us to be able to do that.
“Yeah, we don’t need the added motivation. We’re already right there, trying to get everything we can. That’s a tribute to Rowdy. Just happy we were able to get it done.”
Snookered
For the 100 laps preceding the final stint of Sunday’s Toyota Owners 400, the race for the lead primarily came down to another contest between Denny Hamlin and Joey Logano.
Neither competitor prevailed in the end.
After battling each other nearly a half-lap ahead of any other competitor on the lead lap, Logano and Hamlin saw their advantage erased by a late caution for a crashing Kevin Harvick. Logano led at the time, but Hamlin figured to be a threat with perceivably better short-run speed.
The duo each came to pit road for fresh tires under the caution and Hamlin’s pit crew seemingly made a race-winning move, helping him beat Logano off of pit road with a blazingly quick stop. Hamlin was given the benefit of first lane choice as the leader due to the stop, chose the inside and quickly cleared Logano on the ensuing restart.
From there he would surely drive off to a win… Except he didn’t. Neither did Logano.
Instead it was Bowman, having sat more than 10 seconds behind 10 minutes earlier, that surged to an unlikely victory. With a strong short-run car, he shot by both drivers in succession to take the lead with 10 to go and built up enough of a cushion that Hamlin couldn’t catch him before the checkered flag flew.
The win was a breakthrough moment for Bowman after a hit-or-miss start to 2021. But it was a disappointing result for both Hamlin and Logano, who settled for second and third at race’s end.
“We just didn’t take off very good there,” Hamlin said of the last run. “Definitely was the worse that our car took off after a restart.
“The 48, I’m guessing, his tires pumped up and he was able to take off there, get the lead, and then build a lead big enough I didn’t have enough time to get back to him.”
The run was the latest in a stretch of near misses for the Virginian, who sits more than a full race above any other competitor in the point standings but has fallen just short of victory lane thus far in 2021. He’s won six stages, finished no worse than 11th and led a series-best 694 laps while averaging a top-five with a 4.2 average result. But in a series more focused than ever on wins, Hamlin’s success has been overshadowed by the storyline of eight winners in nine races.
Hamlin doesn’t deny the frustration of not winning at this stage, but he was still happy with his position leaving Richmond.
“It’s frustrating for sure,” Hamlin said. “But honestly, I’d rather be where I am than Alex Bowman. I don’t care that he’s got a win; we’re smashing everyone. I’d still rather be where I’m at.”
Logano has already won in 2021, having outlasted Hamlin to claim the first Bristol dirt race in March. He thought he had a chance to score another on Sunday and was surprised to see Bowman’s late ascent, having entered the final restart expecting a two-car race for the win.
“I thought we were going to be a battle between the front row, especially the way we launched on the final restart there,” Logano said. “Just could barely hang on to (Hamlin)’s quarter(panel) down into (Turn 1). I thought, ‘Maybe I can roll the top here.’ Got there, the front just wasn’t woken up yet. Wasn’t turning for about three laps. Obviously (Bowman) was in a different league for about five laps.”
To his credit, Bowman was just as surprised as the two drivers he beat afterwards.
“My strong suit all day was being able to get into the corner really deep,” he said. “I was able to get in deep, aside Denny. I knew I had the preferred lane, could probably clear him. I kind of figured he would get right back to me and be faster than us.
“When we drove away, I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, what’s happening?’”
He certainly wasn’t the only one asking himself that question.
Ford Performances (Finally)
Lost in the shuffle of the excitement up front were two sorely-needed runs from Ford drivers in the top-10.
Aric Almirola and Matt DiBenedetto were both drivers that could be roughly penciled into the playoff grid heading into the 2021 season. Almirola is a veteran with a top program in Stewart-Haas Racing and entered this season after three-consecutive playoff berths. DiBenedetto had made the playoffs for the first time in 2020, but figured to be a factor again on his second year with Wood Brothers Racing after scoring a career-best 11 top-10s and all-but winning last season.
Their playoff odds were high entering the year. But it didn’t take long for either driver’s season to go awry. They were both caught up in the massive crash early in the Daytona 500, falling out after just 13 (Almirola) and 14 (DiBenedetto) laps.
That would be fine if it were an outlier. But both veterans continued to find misfortune over the ensuing weeks.
DiBenedetto finished no better than 28th in his first three starts. He had since avoided catastrophe, but prior to Sunday had finished between 12th and 16th in five-consecutive races. That’s fine for holding steady in the points, but not ideal when you’re already behind and need to make up ground.
Almirola had been nothing short of miserable, even by DiBenedetto’s comparative standards. In his first seven starts, the Floridian had as many DNFs (3) as finishes inside of the top-20. He’d cracked the top-15 just once – an 11th-place effort at Phoenix – and had failed to lead a single lap as the entirety of Stewart-Haas Racing struggled.
The two-time Cup winner didn’t lead a lap Sunday at Richmond, but he did make a positive step in reversing the trend of poor form. Almirola had a quiet day on the Virginia short track, steadily marching his way to sixth in a race that largely ran caution-free.
There were no flukes or weird strategies. Just consistent pace, a trouble-free run and his best result since last August’s Bristol Night Race. He even came close to cracking the top-five, falling short of Martin Truex Jr. in the closing laps.
“Man, I really battled for fifth there at the end, but burnt up my tires on the outside in the process,” he said. “Finally, a solid day for our Smithfield team. Everyone did their part and we were mistake-free today. Let’s fire it up and keep it rolling.
Just three spots behind Almirola in ninth at race’s end was DiBenedetto, who also scored his first top-10 of 2021. The result was a welcome reprieve, coming at a track where the team actually expected to struggle.
mannn. P9. this one felt good. the one we were supposed to struggle at the most is our best finish of the year. everything went right today. pit road was solid, calls, all of it. plus matt done good. he done real good
— Wood Brothers Racing (@woodbrothers21) April 18, 2021
“It definitely feels long overdue that we got that top 10 finally, so that’s good,” DiBenedetto said. “We’ve had some rough circumstances that sort of put us in a hole to start the year, but we knew that we have plenty of speed and obviously a great team. It was good to come here and at a track that I really wouldn’t consider one that I have a ton of success at in the past, so that was definitely rewarding.”
Sunday’s runs were a step in the right direction for both drivers, but they still have a long way to climb. DiBenedetto has closed up a playoff deficit that once seemed impossible, but remains 39 points below the current cutline with only eight spots remaining due to the high quantity of unique early winners. Almirola is even further back, mired back in 27th with 77 points to make up if he hopes to make the postseason without a win.
There’s still a mountain the climb, but DiBenedetto and Almirola have at least made the first step.
Notes
- Joe Gibbs Racing should have factored into the finish even more. Two of the cars running around Bowman throughout the day were Martin Truex Jr. and Kurt Busch, but each driver saw their final stage impacted by pit road penalties for speeding (Truex) and a commitment line violation (Busch). Christopher Bell still lived up to his part of the bargain in fourth, while Truex and Busch had to rally to fifth and eighth, respectively.
- What a shame it was for Kevin Harvick to have late tire trouble. After an atypical start to the year, Harvick was quietly in contention for a strong top-10 before the crash ruined his result in 24th.
- William Byron just keeps knocking down top-10s. Hendrick Motorsports’ most consistent driver scored his seventh top-10 in nine races on Sunday, helping him rise to fourth as the team’s best driver in the standings thus far. He’s already halfway to his 2020 total of 14 top-10s.
- Want to know how to mount a quiet playoff campaign? Watch Ricky Stenhouse Jr. He made noise with a runner-up run on the Bristol dirt, but has finished 18th or better in every other race as well. That has him 14th heading to a Talladega Superspeedway race he came about two feet from winning last year.
- After being impressive pretty much everywhere in his NASCAR return, Kyle Larson finally showed weakness in an 18th-place struggle at Richmond. That’s not a bit deal necessarily, but it’ll be interesting to see how the team bounces back.
- Austin Dillon’s another driver knocking out 2021 with consistency so far. He had one 34th-place effort on the Daytona road course, but also has three top-10s and six top-15s in nine races so far while completing all but two laps. That has the Richard Childress Racing ace sitting 12th in the standings so far after his 10th-place run in Richmond.
- An 11th-place run is normally nothing to celebrate for Ryan Blaney, but considering that he’d ran no better than 17th in nine prior Richmond starts, it’s at least a step in the right direction.
Toyota Owners 400 Results
- Alex Bowman
- Denny Hamlin
- Joey Logano
- Christopher Bell
- Martin Truex Jr.
- Aric Almirola
- William Byron
- Kyle Busch
- Matt DiBenedetto
- Austin Dillon
- Ryan Blaney
- Chase Elliott
- Kurt Busch
- Brad Keselowski
- Ross Chastain
- Daniel Suarez
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
- Kyle Larson
- Erik Jones
- Tyler Reddick
- Corey LaJoie
- Chris Buescher
- Cole Custer
- Kevin Harvick
- Chris Buescher
- Bubba Wallace
- Michael McDowell
- Austin Cindric
- Ryan Preece
- Ryan Newman
- Anthony Alfredo
- BJ McLeod
- James Davison
- Quin Houff
- Garrett Smithely
- Cody Ware
- Josh Bilicki
- Justin Haley
Stage 1
- Denny Hamlin
- Martin Truex Jr.
- Joey Logano
- William Byron
- Ryan Blaney
- Christopher Bell
- Alex Bowman
- Austin Dillon
- Brad Keselowski
- Kevin Harvick
Stage 2
- Denny Hamlin
- Martin Truex Jr.
- Joey Logano
- Alex Bowman
- Kevin Harvick
- Matt DiBenedetto
- Kyle Busch
- William Byron
- Christopher Bell
- Aric Almirola
