Save for the Clemson Tigers football team, perhaps nobody in the state of South Carolina had as miserable a weekend as Rick Hendrick.
In Sunday’s Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway – a crown jewel race and the opener of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs – all four Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolets finished outside of the top-10.
It was a surprisingly poor effort from the winningest organization in NASCAR history on a night where it could ill afford it.
No HMS driver got off worse than Alex Bowman, who had to sit through a 40-second pit stop during a green-flag cycle. Bowman was unable to recover from the costly error and finished 31st, two laps down.
Bowman snagged the final playoff spot one week ago at Daytona, but his 31st-place finish puts him 19 points below the Round of 12 cut line going into the second race of the Round of 16 at Gateway.
“Shi—, unacceptable day on all fronts,” Bowman told reporters on pit road after the race.