DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - Hendrick Motorsports president and general manager, Jeff Andrews, addressed a pack Team Center full of company teammates on Wednesday for the annual NASCAR playoff kickoff luncheon.
After listing off the season's accolades, he had a simple message for Alex Bowman, crew chief Blake Harris and the rest of the No. 48 team.
"Forty-eight team - Blake, Alex - we're going to give you guys everything we've got," Andrews said. "You've got the full force of this company behind you, not only at Daytona, but as you move ahead into the playoffs."
For Bowman, this week's scenario isn't necessarily ideal. While the team has been mostly consistent in 2025 - entering tied for second in top-five finishes with 14 and currently ninth in the Cup Series regular season standings - there's still a possibility his quest for a Cup Series championship could come to an end on Saturday night in Daytona. Though Bowman is 60 points above the elimination line, a new winner in the regular season's final race could knock him out of the playoff picture.
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But there's plenty of good news for Bowman and the team. First, the 48 had one of its best races of the year just a week ago, coming home second at Richmond Raceway. Secondly, as Andrews alluded, the objective of the organization is pretty clear as it enters the World Center of Racing this weekend: Get Bowman into the playoff field.
And there are multiple ways to do that. First, Bowman could pile up stage points and try to catch and pass Tyler Reddick in the standings - he'd need to gain 29 markers. Second, a repeat winner would get Bowman through. Third, he could win the race himself, and while the situation isn't perfect, Bowman admitted his game plan is fairly simple.
“Super stressful but all we can do is go try to win,” Bowman admitted to HendrickMotorsports.com this week. "I just want to go try to run our race. I'm just driving the race car. There's really not a lot you can do, so, just go try to perform the best we can."
Bowman has been asked about scenarios and pressure ad nauseum all week. And certainly, Harris has fielded his fair share of questions as well.
But in the NASCAR Cup Series these days, likely now more than ever, it takes a team of people to make an operation go. And the pressure on Bowman and Harris can be felt up and down the 48 team chain of command as well. Yet, that's nothing new.
"I've been here for quite a while now and you have pressure every week. You become accustomed to it, and you have to perform under pressure all the time," said Thomas Heslink, car chief on the No. 48. "We've got a lot of support from the company this week and I think we brought a good piece and all that helps too. It's a large company and we're really good at making fast race cars."
While nothing at Daytona International Speedway is ever guaranteed, no matter how fast a car is, Bowman has certainly done as good a job as anyone in NASCAR when it's come to surviving superspeedway races, especially as of late. His career average finish of 14.7 at Daytona is third-best among active Cup drivers and in his last six starts there, he's finished no worse than 16th with two top fives and four top 10s.
For that string of finishes to continue, sure, Bowman has to be sharp behind the wheel. But with Next Gen drafting races now including a steady diet of fuel mileage to go along with the normal calamity that ensues, there's more than ever put on those behind the scenes. This week, that includes Heslink.
"First priority is building a fast race car," Heslink said. "Second priority is - and you can never be - but trying to be prepared for the unlimited (number) of scenarios that can happen while running a race."
One of those scenarios took care of itself on Friday. Storms in the area never quite made it to the race track but lightning lingered too close, forcing NASCAR to cancel Cup Series qualifying. That was good news for the 48 team as Bowman will now roll off second with the starting lineup being set by NASCAR's qualifying metric. That should help with track position, which has become ever more important in the Next Gen era.
But regardless, more often than not this year, the 48 group has brought a fast race car and that has the team confident both this week and beyond.
"We're all confident that we can be competitive," Heslink said. "We know we can run up front. We've just got to find a way to get over that hump and once we do, I think we can roll from there. This could be the perfect weekend for that, where everything goes our way. If the cards fall right and we can get over that hump and get rolling into the playoffs."
And on top of all that, Bowman should have plenty of friends when he hits the track Saturday night - primarily, a trio of Hendrick Motorsports teammates that includes three-time Daytona winner, William Byron.
"I'm definitely going to try to help all those guys at Daytona," Byron said. " It's good to be racing teammates. I think, try to be stronger within the group and help those guys out at Daytona, for sure."
While the help is nice, Bowman and the 48 group believe they're good enough on their own to get through Saturday and beyond. And much of that belief comes from the inevitable struggles overcome along the way.
"Adversity is also team building. When you face adversity and then you overcome it, it only makes you stronger as a group," Heslink concluded. "I go back to that early summer stretch where we were struggling and getting bad luck and all that kind of stuff. We knew we could get out of it, but when was it going to happen? And I feel like now, we got out of it, we went through it and got through it and we're only better as a team because of it."
“I feel like we’ve been better, for sure, as a team. Still trying to grow the team and get everybody better and get myself better and kind of do all the right things, which I feel like we’ve done a good job at here lately," Bowman added. "Just need to try to control our own destiny. Obviously, if we score good stage points in both stages and (Reddick) doesn't, that puts us in a good spot. Really, just need to go race the whole race and what it's going to be is kind of what it's going to be."