NASCAR Cup Series team makes drastic changes after playoff disasters

Alex Bowman will have his car serviced by an almost entirely new crew this weekend at Bristol, as he scrambles for survival in the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs.

Bowman, who snatched the final points spot in the postseason, has seen his Round of 16 disrupted by pit road disasters at both Darlington and Gateway, and Hendrick Motorsports has chosen to make a decisive move.

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The team has switched the majority of the pit crew from the No. 77 car run by Spire Motorsports, with whom Hendrick have a technical alliance – bringing in Daniel Bach (front changer), Rod Cox (rear changer), Jarius Morehead (tire carrier) and Cody French (jack), but leaving fueler Jacob Conley in place.

The move to borrow Carson Hocevar's pit crew is a surprising one, but was always possible, with Hendrick supplying pit crew to all three of Spire's cars, and the questionably-dubbed 'Hurricane' not in the playoffs.

READ MORE: Hendrick Motorsports facing early playoff EXIT as star suffers St Louis nightmare

Bowman frustrated by playoff errors

Speaking after Sunday's shambles at Gateway, Bowman told media: “We’re just not doing anything right at all. Super unfortunate. There is really no excuse for it for any reason. It’s kind of dumb.”

He continued: “Yeah, just really poor execution on all angles. Bummer. I thought our car was OK once we were kind of toward the front half; we were just awful in the back, but what can you do? It’s super frustrating. It was just stupid to speed there, but it’s not like I ran over my lights or anything. I just got told to go too early.

“It’s frustrating. I don’t know – just a really [expletive] day on all accounts. All we can do is keep digging. A lot of people are working really hard to continue to be better. I thought, race car-wise, it was probably a step in the right direction once we got some air. We’ve just got to go to Bristol and go to work.”

He also specifically addressed the issues on pit road, saying of his crew: “[My] guys are really fast. They look really awesome in all the metrics, and they work really hard. It’s just the ones that blow up are really bad. It’s unfortunate. We've got to go to Bristol and keep working at it.”

NASCAR Cup Series playoff standings after St Louis (Gateway)

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