DOVER, Del. — Alex Bowman parked the No. 48 Chevrolet in its familiar spot in Victory Lane at Dover International Speedway, leading a dominant outing for Hendrick Motorsports on Sunday.
Bowman led Hendrick to a sensational 1-2-3-4 finish in the NASCAR Cup Series races. Kyle Larson was second, Chase Elliott third and William Byron fourth.
Bowman won his second race of the season and passed 1,000 laps led in his career. But the victory celebration at the Monster Mile had to seem familiar for Hendrick Motorsports. Jimmie Johnson, the seven-time NASCAR champion now in IndyCar, won a track-record 11 times at Dover in the 48.
Turns out, Johnson’s successor is just as adept at handling the rigors of the concrete mile track.
“Best race track on the schedule,” Bowman said.
Bowman has followed two of NASCAR’s biggest superstars, first taking the wheel of the No. 88 after Dale Earnhardt Jr. retired and made the move to the 48 this season.
He’s tried to escape their large shadows — but will gladly take the checkered flag.
Bowman came from nowhere with 10 laps to go to win in April at Richmond and stole his first win of the season. Bowman joined Martin Truex Jr. as the only driver this season with multiple victories.
Larson lead a parade for all but a handful of laps into the third stage. Larson won the first two stages of the race and seemed poised to turn this race into a rout.
Bowman spoiled the run when he beat the No. 5 off pit road and led the final 98 laps. Larson led a race-high 263 laps.
“Their team just did a good job on getting control on the pit stop,” Larson said. “I feel like I did everything I could.”
Hendrick Motorsports is the first team to finish 1-2-3-4 since Roush Racing in 2005. HMS led 382 of the 400 laps. Hendrick Motorsports has 267 victories, one shy of the NASCAR record held by Petty Enterprises. Petty Enterprises last won in 2008.
Dover wrapped its only NASCAR weekend of the season. The track traditionally held two NASCAR weekends but moved one race date to Nashville Superspeedway. Nashville will have a Cup race on June 20. The 1.33-mile concrete track was built in 2001 by Dover Motorsports and hosted NASCAR and IndyCar events until 2011. Nashville Superspeedway held Xfinity and Truck events, as well as IndyCar races from 2001 until 2011. Dover hosted one race weekend in 1969 and 1970 and then held two races every season from 1971 to 2020.
NASCAR heads to another new venue next week, traveling to Texas and the Circuit of the Americas for a road course race. COTA joined Indianapolis and Road America in rural Wisconsin as new road course events on a 2021 schedule that already included Sonoma Raceway, Watkins Glen and the Charlotte Roval.
