Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour presented by NASCAR on FOX - Alex Bowman Interview | VICTORY LAP

Episode Date: July 8, 2024

In this bonus episode, Kevin Harvick takes a victory lap with Alex Bowman after Bowman snapped his 80-race winless streak at Chicago! Tune in to hear Alex’s thrilling account of his victory at the Grant Park 165, where he masterfully handled wet-weather tires in the final laps. Get an insider’s perspective on the race, Alex’s preparation, and the dedication that led him to triumph. Don’t miss this exciting bonus episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour, presented by NASCAR on Fox. And today we've got a little bonus again this week. And today I'll take a victory lap with Alex Bowman, the winner of yesterday's race, and see if he's actually still alive today after we heard that post-race interview. So let's dig into Alex and see how his weekend unfolded. Well, the first thing I want to do is ask you, did you wake up on the floor naked after drinking too much bourbon? because that totally threw me off in the post race because I was worried about your condition for today. So you survived everything okay.

Yeah, I, you know, I'm kind of impressed with myself, honestly. I feel like I've certainly grown up a little bit in the last couple of years. And yeah, I woke up in my bed like a normal human, made it to my meetings this morning. Everything, everything's good. I'm not too bad off. I mean, I got like an hour and a half asleep, so we're here. Well, good, good job. And I guess the thing that people don't understand, when you go through these winless streaks, there's a lot of pressure. And I think for you, with everything that you had going on, that win yesterday obviously

meant a lot to not only you, but Blake and everybody on your team. Talk to me about that gap in between races, the injuries, not winning, the pressure, and how you've dealt with all that through everything that you've gone through. Yeah, for sure. I mean, yeah, so much has gone on, right? Like the concussion at the end of 22, break my back, the beginning of 23, long time in between wins. And honestly, you know, like when we won that last race at Vegas,

we had won quite a bit leading up to that, you know, and pretty often. So honestly, we didn't even really celebrate that one. Like, we're like, oh, it's too late. We're not going to land early enough to celebrate. We'll just celebrate the next one. And certainly I've regretted that for over two years. But, yeah, I mean, definitely a lot of pressure.

My teammates have been super successful in the last couple of years. And, you know, it's for whatever reason, like we've definitely struggled a little bit. So just felt really good to be able to get back in Victory Lane. Finally went out of road course, which I feel like my road course stuff has continued to improve. And now I can go to most of the road courses and be pretty confident. So, you know, I just, you know, I'm really appreciative of everybody sticking with me through some hard times and meant a lot to get back in victory lane. When you talk about yesterday and you look at those conditions and everything that came with getting to victory lane, obviously the call at the end of the race to stay out.

But talk me through yesterday. You had a lot of decisions to make. Really, a lot of that was, I would assume, on you in having to say, you know, slicks or rain tires. And we heard the call at the end of the race. You know, if you're going to win, I think we need to stay out. You said that on the radio. Talk me through yesterday and just how tricky those conditions were. and what you battled and just that fine line between going fast and being aggressive and

sticking it in the fence like we like we saw so many guys do yesterday. Yeah, for sure. I mean, you know, I think we started the race pretty strong. We were pretty good that first stage. And then, you know, I tried my best to throw all that away that first restart in stage two. And, you know, damage the car quite a bit and kind of had to regrouped. a little bit there on the red flag and, you know, glad that it did stay as what is it did with how torn up our car was. But I think for me, you know, Blake is really good at, you know,

having an idea of what we need to do and presenting the options. You know, I honestly probably would have said that we were going to need to be on drys. But that caution that we got there kind of saved us and helped us kind of make it to the end there. So, yeah, I mean, I think maybe we could have finished top 10 on drys, right? But the only way we were going to win is if it worked on the wet. And glad it worked out. It's definitely, I mean, you know how it is.

It's really hard to see in the wet. And after it starts to dry out, like your windshield gets so dirty that you really can't even see where the dry line really is. So trying to find water and knowing what was dry, what was wet, where to cool the tires down, that all got really tricky at the end of the race. And I'm just glad it worked out for us. Well, you came into the race 16th in the points. And obviously we know that that is the biggest pressure spot because, A, you got to answer way too many dumb questions from all of us in the media. and all the pressure that comes with that because you've got to answer it over and over and over. Now you've won.

You put yourself into the playoffs. Take a ton of pressure off of yourself, your race team. So where is your team? Because in my opinion, you guys have been pretty consistent. You know, you hadn't been to Victory Lane, but now you've been to Victory Lane. You talk about 2021. You guys went to Victory Lane four times. And it was kind of like you were just nosing over that hill.

It's going to be consistent winners, multiple race winners, from, from there on forward throughout the next several years of your career and then everything happened. But where is your team now? Do you think you can get back to Victory Lane now that you've kind of knocked that barrier over? And where do you think you can go in the playoffs? Yeah, I mean, for us, I think we have to continue to act like the pressure is still there and continue to just approach every week like we need to win races. Pocono is a really good place for us, so excited to get there this week. week. But yeah, I think getting that win helps for sure, but we can't just be like,

okay, we want a race. Now we can just focus on the playoffs. I think we need to focus on each week and not kind of drop the intensity that we've had. I think our team is in a good spot. You know, we've got a lot of young guys and we've grown a lot as a team, which has been really fun to be a part of. But yeah, I mean, I think the last month, has probably been pretty rough on us, especially compared to like the month leading up to that. We've kind of fallen off a little bit. So getting a victory lane, kind of eliminating the points talk. And now just trying to be 10-tenths every weekend, I think there's good racetracks coming up for us.

And, you know, the playoffs, if you get hot, you can go all the way through. I feel like we have every tool we need and all the parts and pieces we need to make that happen. And so excited to be back in it. Last year was not very fun watching from where I sat. So, yeah, hopefully we can make a lot of noise in the playoffs, and it'll be a good year. Well, I hope you make a good run throughout the playoffs and leading up to it. But I think the most anticipated question that I had for this interview is,

what's your favorite bourbon? Obviously, you've exposed the fact that you like bourbon. So what's the preferred flavor and brand? Yeah, so it's interesting because I bought I bought some bottles like March of 22 and we were like, oh, we're going to open them next time we win. And obviously it's been way too long. So there were there were two bottles of Pappy that had like this massive anticipation. And they kind of let me down a little bit. Like I, I, my favorite, I like Weller Antique 107 is, is my go-to.

So, yeah, I don't feel that good right now, but yeah, it was a good night for sure. A lot of guys on my team have never won a cup race before. So being able to share that with them and, and like they're, they might have forgotten some of the night, but they're feeling it today for sure. So being able to do all that with them was really special. Well, congratulations to you and everybody else on that race team. I hope you get to, you know, test a few more bourbons out. But before the end of the year, congratulations, and thanks for taking the time to join us.

Yeah, thanks, man. Thanks for having me.