Hendrick Motorsports' Alex Bowman endured a rough start to the 2026 season, and he was 36th in the point standings even before he missed four consecutive races due to vertigo, a diagnosis which came after he removed himself from the season's third race at Circuit of the Americas (COTA) due to what was described at the time only as an illness.
His return at Bristol Motor Speedway resulted in a last-place DNF, putting him further behind the 8-ball and making it even more likely that NASCAR's decision to grant him a playoff waiver would be entirely pointless, other than for the purpose of appeasing his race team and his fans.
A respectable 18th place finish at Kansas Speedway followed, and since then, he's recorded back-to-back finishes of third at Talladega Superspeedway and Texas Motor Speedway.
Alex Bowman no longer last in NASCAR Cup Series standings
While a jump up into the top 16 to qualify for the playoffs is still most definitely a longshot, the driver of the No. 48 Chevrolet has gotten himself out of last in the standings, a move that always felt inevitable sooner rather than later.
He's up to 34th. But it's not Rick Ware Racing's Cody Ware, who had been 35th and ahead of only Bowman, who has dropped to last. Instead, it's Haas Factory Team's Cole Custer.
Ware is now one point ahead of Custer, who was involved in a pit road incident on Sunday at Texas with Team Penske's Joey Logano which ultimately knocked him out of the race, before his team made repairs and sent him back out on the race track many laps down. Custer has not finished higher than 22nd place all season long.
Haas Factory Team switched manufacturers from Ford to Chevrolet after the 2025 season, a season which saw Custer place 32nd in the standings with three top 10 finishes and seven other finishes inside the top 20. At this point last year, Custer had twice finished inside the top 20.
As for Ware, him not being last is a pleasant surprise. His best finish of the season is a 17th place effort in the Daytona 500, and he has another finish, a 21st place effort at Talladega Superspeedway, which is better than Custer's best result of 22nd at EchoPark Speedway (Atlanta Motor Speedway).
Bowman's recent surge has him 24 points ahead of last place and 127 points below the cut line. But including his rough start, he has averaged 16.43 points per start, which would only be good for 28th in the series had he actually competed in all 11 races up to this point in the year.
Watkins Glen International is scheduled to host the season's 12th race, the Go Bowling at The Glen, this Sunday, May 10, with live coverage set to be provided by Fox Sports 1 starting at 3:00 p.m. ET. Start a free trial of FuboTV and don't miss it!