The saying “pressure makes diamonds” could be applied to Alex Bowman and crew chief Blake Harris.
Prior to Sunday’s Chicago Street Race, the pair had gone through 52 races together without reaching victory lane. Their Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet is considered one of the equipped entries in the NASCAR Cup Series.
With each passing race, more and more pressure mounted for the No. 48 team.
However, the team rose to the occasion with an emotional victory on perhaps NASCAR’s toughest race track — the 2.2-mile Chicago Street Course.
From Bowman’s side, the victory came as a relief after a tumultuous last two seasons due to a concussion (2022) and back injury sustained in a sprint car accident last year.
“It’s not a lot of fun,” Bowman admitted. “Yeah, we won four races in ’21. We won right off the bat in ’22. Then we had a rough summer in ’22 and then we got back rolling and then I got hurt and we started ’23 really fast and I got hurt again.
“Yeah, it’s really difficult. Obviously, we have all the tools we need to win and our teammates have been really good throughout that time. But we just couldn’t put it together.
“It has certainly been a large mental test to go through everything that has happened in the last two years and try to continue to overcome that each and every week, especially when things aren’t going your way, and honestly the last month has been super frustrating for us,” Bowman continued. “We’ve had a lot of things outside of our control, cost us a lot of points and it’s been really frustrating.
“To be able — there’s a lot of emotions that go away with this because of how hard that has been.”
Jeff Gordon, Hendrick Motorsports’ Vice Chairman, addressed the pressure Bowman and the team were under, stating the win was “so important.”
“These guys work so hard, and certainly I get to spend time with guys like Blake (Harris) and you see him come into Hendrick Motorsports and there’s a lot of pressure and expectations there, so that’s the same way for Alex and all the drivers,” Gordon said.
“It’s important that you gel and the chemistry comes and the effort is there, but you’ve got to win. At some point you’ve got to win, not just because you’re at Hendrick Motorsports, it’s because it’s really hard to get the team where they need to be to compete at the highest level on a regular basis, make the playoffs and then compete at a high level in the playoffs without victories coming to just remind everybody that we’re doing the right things and we’re working in the right direction and we’re working well together.
“Yeah, I think today was a huge day for both of these guys and the whole team,” Gordon continued. “I couldn’t be more proud or happy for the whole group because I know what kind of pressure they’ve been feeling, and it’s amazing for all of us now to have all four cars in the playoffs.
“It’s probably a bit of a reset now, right, of, ‘OK, that weight just keeps getting heavier and heavier every week,’ and I think it just makes it harder and harder, and then they come in here and get asked a lot of questions.
“I’m sure for both of them, it’s nice to have this one off their back and then just start focusing forward on getting where they need to be in the playoffs.”
Through the grueling process, Harris has, in essence, taken the entire team’s pressure and ran with it.
“You feel, at least for myself, I go to all the guys and I tell them, ‘Put the pressure on me, let’s go to work. You do your job, we’re going to get it done.’ Eventually got to deliver on that,” Harris said. “I think they’ve delivered a lot, and it was nice to finally be able to deliver the win.
“We’ve got a young team. We’ve got a young pit crew, a young road crew that we’ve been working really hard on and building. I think I’ve got like six or seven guys on this team that it’s their first time to ever be in victory lane in the Cup Series, so that’s a big deal. They’ve got to know what it feels like, and it’s important to know what it feels like now so that once we’re in the playoffs, it’s not new,” Harris continued.
“It’s not building pressure of what’s been in the past. They know what it looks like now. Super excited to get the monkey off our back. Really excited for Alex. I thought he drove a heck of a race today. I felt like we had speed all weekend, and yeah, it feels really good.”
Now with a victory and ticket to the NASCAR Playoffs punched, the No. 48 team can focus on the final six regular season races. Bowman is 11th in the standings with 11 top-10 finishes.