Bowman takes the pole for NASCAR Cup Series race at Homestead. He’s glad about it, but...
Alex Bowman won Saturday’s race for the Straight Talk Wireless 400 pole, but he didn’t ooze pole-sitter strut when talking about Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
“Some people’s cars here are not great on the short run, but they’re really fast on long run,” Bowman said. “We were kind of the opposite of that in practice. We were really fast on the short run, not great on the long run stuff. I knew qualifying would be really important because of that, and we’ve got some work to do for tomorrow.”
Most of Saturday’s qualifying session, Noah Gregson’s 32.101-second, 168.219-mph lap — qualifying at Homestead is one-shot, one lap — held the provisional pole until Bowman in his Ally Racing Chevrolet pipped him with the only sub-32 lap of the day, 31.982 seconds (168.845 mph). Josh Berry in the Wood Brothers’ No. 21 Ford knocked Gregson back to the second row with a lap at 32.055 seconds, 168.460 mph.
“This place is pretty weather sensitive, so we probably had a little bit of a cloud there,” Bowman said.
Drivers who matched Gregson’s speed down the backstretch couldn’t match his third and fourth turn speed. At Homestead, that often means running the high line, one of the plethora of options that makes the track a favorite of drivers.
“You just go and turn the wheel and where the car ends up, that’s where it is,” Bubba Wallace joked after qualifying ninth. “This place is so wide that you can get lost. That’s the nice thing about this race track is there are so many grooves to run. But, it is intimidating.”
As for how hard it us to ride the wall, where the side aerodynamics give you more speed, Bowman said, “Running the wall can be so technical and a lot of fun. Not many other things we do that are that high risk.”
Wallace said, “It’s the hardest thing. (Kyle) Larson’s the best at doing it and he smoked the fence twice in practice.”
Larson’s skill and bad Heim luck decide the truck race
If the only Kyle Larson race you saw was Friday night’s Baptist Health 200 Craftsman Truck Series, you’d understand Wallace’s analysis.
With 45 laps to go, Larson spun trying to get around Layne Riggs. Though he kept his truck off the wall, he plummeted out of the Top 20 and, seemingly, out of contention.
But, riding the wall expertly while Riggs, Corey Heim, Ross Chastain, Tyler Ankrum and Daniel Hemric fought for the lead, Larson gobbled up positions and closed on the lead pack. Winning always requires a little bit of luck, and Larsen got it with 20 laps left.
Heim, winner of two of the season’s first three races, continued his dominance by taking the pole, winning both stages and leading a race-high 78 laps Friday. But, Heim’s engine caught a case of automotive narcolepsy, cutting out repeatedly and requiring Heim to reset it. Heim managed to keep up front the first two times, even staying in front of Riggs to lead, but he got one cut out too many. He faded back to third.
“I feel like we were lights out, the best truck tonight, think we should’ve won the race by six, seven seconds at the end there,” Heim said.
“I don’t know exactly what was going on,” Heim said. “Never really had an issue like that. I’d be totally fine, and the engine would just hard cut on me. Dash would go black and have no power until I fully cycled it. So, I was coasting for six seconds trying to turn the power switch and turn it back (on). I don’t know.”
With Heim out, Larson zipped past Riggs for a 1.34-second win.
“Not sure what happened to the 11 (Heim), but that worked out in our favor for sure,” Larson said. “I don’t think I would have gotten to him (otherwise). Obviously, I would have gotten to second, probably, but that would have been tough to get to him.”
Cup drivers moonlighting on Friday night
Fox rolled the dice on the truck race, not only putting it on Friday night prime time, but using a broadcast crew of Cup drivers — Joey Logano and Bred Keselowski and the recently-retired Kevin Harvick in the booth with Austin Cindric and Carson Hocevar as the pit road reporters.
“It was an awesome show,” Cindric said. “I honestly found myself distracted by how good the race was from being able to provide the information necessary to continue to add to the broadcast.”
Cindric’s grown up at the track — father Tim Cindric has been a Penske Racing executive for decades — and said he’s often critical of information errors on the racing broadcasts he’s watched his entire life. Manning the TV reporter microphone gave him an appreciation for the difficulty in getting accurate information out in real time.
Also, Friday “was the first time i covered on a truck race,” Cindric said. “I only spent a year in the truck series. If I cover an Xfinity race, I’m super comfortable because I know the cars exceptionally well, I know the teams and the drivers.”
Who will Sunday’s winner “B?”
All the NASCAR Cup Series winners this season have had a last name beginning with “B.”
Alex Bowman quipped “At least we’re on the list.”
This story was originally published March 22, 2025 at 5:46 PM.
