Alex Bowman notched his first Busch Light Pole Award of the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season at Bristol Motor Speedway for the Bass Pro Shops Night Race on Friday, September 20.
The 31-year-old Bowman from Tucson, Arizona, the ninth-fastest competitor during the event’s lone practice session earlier on Friday, was one of 10 competitors from two qualifying groups to transfer into the final qualifying round for the pole position. During the final round, Bowman posted his best qualifying lap at 126.720 mph in 15.142 seconds, which was enough to place his No. 48 Ally/Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 entry atop the leaderboard and in the top starting spot for Saturday night’s main event at Thunder Valley.
With his accomplishment, Bowman notched his fifth career pole at the NASCAR Cup Series level, his first at Bristol Motor Speedway and his first since winning the pole position for the 2023 Daytona 500. In addition, Bowman recorded the second Cup pole award for the Chevrolet nameplate in recent weeks and he became the first Hendrick Motorsports competitor to start on the pole position since teammate Kyle Larson started first at the Chicago Street Course in July.
With Saturday’s main event at Bristol serving as the third and final Round of 16 events in the 2024 Cup Series Playoffs, Bowman is currently ranked in fourth place in the Playoff standings and is 41 points above the top-12 cutline after finishing fifth and 18th, respectively, during the first two events of the first Playoff round. With the Arizona native also set to remain at Hendrick Motorsports for the 2025 season, he strives to advance into the Round of 12 for the first time since the 2022 season and continue his pursuit of his first championship in NASCAR’s premier series.
“We’re, obviously, in a pretty good spot in points,” Bowman said on USA Network. “We qualified like 400th here in the spring, so definitely studied hard and worked hard to try to come here and be better. We were OK in practice. I feel like I struggled on the top of [Turns] 1 and 2 a little bit. [I] Had a really awesome car in qualifying. Just really proud of everybody at Hendrick Motorsports. They gave me a really fast Ally No. 48 Camaro. That’s what mattered today.”
Kyle Larson, Bowman’s teammate at Hendrick Motorsports and another Playoff contender, will start alongside Bowman on the front row after he posted his best qualifying lap at 126.378 mph in 15.183 seconds. Teammate William Byron will start in third place with his best qualifying lap at 126.695 mph in 15.145 seconds, thus placing three Hendrick Motorsports Playoff contenders in the top three starting spots.
Playoff contenders Martin Truex Jr. and Chase Briscoe will start in the top five and ahead of sixth-place starter Christopher Bell, who is also in the Playoffs. With Playoff contenders Denny Hamlin and Chase Elliott grabbing eighth and 10th place on the starting grid, rookie Carson Hocevar and teammate Corey LaJoie were the only two non-Playoff contenders to qualify in the top 10 as they will start seventh and ninth, respectively.
The remaining Playoff contenders include Ty Gibbs, Tyler Reddick, Joey Logano, Ryan Blaney, Brad Keselowski, Austin Cindric, Harrison Burton and Daniel Suarez will start 13th, 15th, 20th, 22nd, 23rd, 27th, 34th and 35th, respectively.
Currently, Denny Hamlin, Brad Keselowski, Martin Truex Jr. and Harrison Burton are the four Playoff contenders who are scored below the cutline while both Chase Briscoe and Ty Gibbs occupy the final two transfer spots into the Playoffs by six points.
*All 37 entered competitors made the main event.
Qualifying position, best speed, best time:
- Alex Bowman, 126.720 mph, 15.142 seconds
- Kyle Larson, 126.378 mph, 15.183 seconds
- William Byron, 126.695 mph, 15.145 seconds
- Martin Truex Jr., 126.220 mph, 15.202 seconds
- Chase Briscoe, 126.486 mph, 15.170 seconds
- Christopher Bell, 125.889 mph, 15.242 seconds
- Carson Hocevar, 126.096 mph, 15.217 seconds
- Denny Hamlin, 125.666 mph, 15.269 seconds
- Corey LaJoie, 125.166 mph, 15.330 seconds
- Chase Elliott, 125.248 mph, 15.320 seconds
- Bubba Wallace, , 125.477 mph, 15.292 seconds
- Ross Chastain, 124.727 mph, 15.384 seconds
- Ty Gibbs, 125.428 mph, 15.298 seconds
- Ryan Preece, 124.565 mph, 15.404 seconds
- Tyler Reddick, 125.330 mph, 15.310 seconds
- Noah Gragson, 124.355 mph, 15.430 seconds
- Chris Buescher, 125.256 mph, 15.319 seconds
- Michael McDowell, 124.323 mph, 15.434 seconds
- AJ Allmendinger, 124.954 mph, 15.356 seconds
- Joey Logano, 124.250 mph, 15.443 seconds
- Daniel Hemric, 124.946 mph, 15.357 seconds
- Ryan Blaney, 124.058 mph, 15.467 seconds
- Brad Keselowski, 124.889 mph, 15.364 seconds
- Todd Gilliland, 123.953 mph, 15.480 seconds
- Josh Berry, 124.776 mph, 15.378 seconds
- Justin Haley, 123.746 mph, 15.506 seconds
- Austin Cindric, 124.662 mph, 15.392 seconds
- John Hunter Nemechek, 123.491 mph, 15.538 seconds
- Kyle Busch, 124.654 mph, 15.393 seconds
- Austin Dillon, 123.364 mph, 15.554 seconds
- Ricky Stenhouse Jr., 124.058 mph, 15.467 seconds
- Erik Jones, 123.356 mph, 15.555 seconds
- Zane Smith, 123.554 mph, 15.530 seconds
- Harrison Burton, 123.277 mph, 15.565 seconds
- Daniel Suarez, 123.411 mph, 15.548 seconds
- Kaz Grala, 122.084 mph, 15.717 seconds
- Josh Bilicki, 118.518 mph, 16.190 seconds
The 2024 Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway is scheduled to occur this Saturday, September 21, and air at 7:30 p.m. ET on USA Network.
