The NASCAR Cup Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway on Saturday night is a must-win situation for two drivers. When the checkered flag flies on Lap 500, four drivers will be eliminated from the Playoffs and the other championship eligible drivers will be rolling into the Round of 12.
Alex Bowman or Josh Berry needs to win, plain and simple.
Bowman’s Pit Road Mistakes Costly
Bowman and the No. 48 Chevrolet team from Hendrick Motorsports are 35 markers below the Cutoff Line. In the first two Playoff races at Darlington Raceway and World Wide Technology Raceway, total blunders on pit road resulted in devastating finishes of 31st and 26th, respectively.
“It was just really poor execution on all angles today,” Bowman said after WWTR last week. “It was a bummer. I thought our No. 48 Ally Chevrolet was okay once we were kind of towards the front-half. We just struggled in the back.
“Super frustrating, but all we can do is keep digging. There’s a lot of people working really hard to continue to be better. I thought, race car-wise, we were heading in the right direction once we had some air on it.
“We just have to go to Bristol (Motor Speedway) and go to work.”
Bowman will go to work from 15th and being doing everything possible to grab a checkered flag and remain in the Playoffs.
Berry Needs Huge Bounce Back
Berry and the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford team have had incredible qualifying results for the first two Playoff races. When the green flag flew at Darlington, he rolled off in a great position of third on the grid.
However, the Track Too Tough to Tame made a claim on Berry when he spun by himself on Lap 1 and sustained heavy damage. He took his Ford into the garage area where the WBR team made massive repairs. It was enough to return to action, but he was relegated to a 38th-place finish and 128 laps down.
The following week at WWTR, Berry qualified a commendable 12th. But, once again, the bad luck bug bit again on Lap 36 when he crashed and he was credited with last place (36th). When the race starts at Bristol, Berry will roll off outside Row 5 in 10th place.
He shared his thoughts on what the past weeks have been like for him and the team.
“It’s been disappointing to not get the results, but I feel like we’ve performed fairly well,” Berry said. “We went to Darlington and qualified third and felt like we had a good car there. We bottomed out and wrecked on the first lap and then last week I felt like, again, we qualified 12th and felt like we had a solid car.
“We got into it with the No. 9 (Chase Elliott) and I felt like each one of those could have been solid top 10s, which really would have been all we needed to be in a much better spot this weekend.
“So, I’m frustrated with the results, but I think the performance has been there. I think we’ve done a good job. There’s always room for improvement, but there are still positives to take out of it.”
A win for Berry would be very positive, and the same can be said for Bowman.
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