Alex Bowman and the Port of Tucson, Levine Financial, and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Toyota Camry came to Phoenix International Raceway with high hopes of continuing their early success in the 2013 Nascar Nationwide Series season. Hometown driver Alex Bowman from nearby Tucson, Arizona had a busy week of appearances at several radio stations, visits to Irownwood Ridge High School, Canyon Del Oro High School, Tucson International Speedway, Port of Tucson, a meet and greet appearance at Precision Toyota of Tucson, and interviews with Tucson’s KVOA Channel 4, and KGUN Channel 9.
“It was great to see friends, family and all the support in Tucson this week,” said Bowman. “I never knew Tucson had such a large NASCAR fan base until this week, and it really means a lot to me that I’ve got the support of my hometown city behind me and the interest they showed was just an amazing feeling. It was great to see my old high school of Ironwood Ridge, the Automotive Technology course in action at Canyon Del Oro High School, all the great people and fans at Precision Toyota of Tucson, but I think my favorite part was the opportunity to drive and operate a 375,000 pound, 2,200 horsepower locomotive at the Port of Tucson, that’s just something I never thought I’d get the chance to do and really need to thank the Levine family.”
At Phoenix International Raceway on Friday the RAB Racing Toyota Camry was unloaded and proved that it was ready for the mile oval. In the first practice session, Alex Bowman ran the 11th quickest time with a solid handling race car. With the instant speed they found right off the trailer, the team began working on their car setup for the typically long green flag runs of Phoenix International Raceway and in the second practice session Bowman recorded the 16th fastest lap. “We found speed right away in practice so the rest of the day crew chief Chris Rice and the entire crew worked on finding a setup that would be fast for a long period of laps, something that handled great in the beginning but most importantly handled even better at the end of a tire and fuel run,” said Bowman.
Saturday began with Bowman qualifying 18th, the second highest rookie contender in the field. Disaster struck early on lap 2 of the 200 lap event when the No. 70 car of Johanna Long hit the outside wall in turn 4, creating a chain reaction involving six cars. Bowman was right in the middle of the melee and received extensive front end damage, including a damaged radiator that forced him back to the garage. The team at RAB Racing was quick to change the radiator and get Alex back on the track to pick up any positions he could, only losing 28 laps in the garage. From there, Bowman picked up nine spots during the course of the race to finish 31st.
After the race, Bowman was obviously disappointed with the finish. “It was a bad day for sure, I just have to thank everyone at RAB Racing and Port of Tucson for all their support. All the guys back at the shop worked really hard on this No. 99 Toyota Camry. It’s just one of those things, people wrecked in front of us and tried to save it but had no where to go, it is what it is, can’t change it now so we’ll move on to Las Vegas. It means a lot to me to run here in Arizona but I can’t ever seem to finish well here, hopefully we can win one of these someday, but we still have November to give it another shot.”
RAB Racing and Alex Bowman look to regain their early momentum and head to Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the Sam’s Town 300 on Saturday March 9th 10th place in the driver point standings.
