Bowles-Eye View

Three years ago, Martin Truex Jr. led a total of just one lap in the Cup Series. His team had won at NASCAR’s top level only once, at Darlington in the 2011 Southern 500. Kyle Larson? He was halfway through a rookie season in which he never cashed in on Victory …

For Bubba Wallace, it couldn’t wait. Moments earlier, Wallace had fainted while answering questions for a throng of print and online media. The driver blamed it on anxiety over mistakes made in his first start in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. The reality might be dehydration on a hot, humid day …

As the sun beamed down on Dover International Speedway, car owner Rick Hendrick was still taking it all in. Driver Jimmie Johnson had snatched a victory, his record 11th at the Monster Mile, right out of a dominant Kyle Larson’s hands and no one on his own team believed it. Crew chief Chad Knaus found the …

NASCAR’s Dale Earnhardt Jr. news cycle finally got trumped in the sporting world by Thursday night’s NFL draft. As you read this, stories are popping up over names like Mitch Trubisky, Jabrill Peppers and I-can’t-remember-his-name-but-god-he-better-help-my-team. It’s a reminder for all that life must go on. At Hendrick Motorsports, those words ring …

20 years ago, Carl Edwards walked around telling his world he’d rise to the top in NASCAR. No one believed him. 20 years later, Edwards walked to the podium, an established NASCAR star and told the world he was walking away. No one wanted to believe him. Yet here he was, the opening …

Martin Truex, Jr.’s thrilling Southern 500 win Sunday night brought up memories of the last time Furniture Row Racing visited Darlington Victory Lane. It was in the spring of 2011, the driver was Regan Smith and the struggling one-car team had only recently returned to full-time competition after scaling back during …

The list is just as talented as it is long. Kyle Busch, Brad Keselowski, Kyle Larson, Joey Logano, Chase Elliott, Ryan Blaney, Erik Jones… we could go on for awhile. All of these drivers are age 32 or younger, have yet to reach the prime of their NASCAR career and are expected …

The word retirement for athletes, uttered by Tony Stewart this season, often comes associated with two dreaded “R” words: regression and regret. Unlike the American dream, a job where you work 50 years toward a peak salary retirement for athletic superstars almost always occurs before age 50. The best peak at their profession, set seemingly unbeatable …

The third year of Sprint Cup’s current “Win And You’re (Basically) In” Chase format appears on paper to be on pace with past seasons. There have been 10 different winners in the first 15 races, equal to the pace we saw last year and down nine percent from 2014. The …

Chase Elliott is just 20 years old, but he still has fewer Sprint Cup starts — 19 –than his age. He’s replaced one of the best stock car drivers of this era in Jeff Gordon, comes packaged with the weight of his last name (see: Awesome Bill) and never drove a …