(TOLEDO, Ohio - October 22, 2012) - Alex Bowman left Kansas Speedway Friday night with his fourth race win trophy of the year, his second at Kansas Speedway, and a host of important series awards.

Among those awards were the prestigious Team Messina Rookie Challenge, won by four points over Brennan Poole, and the Aaron's Lap Leader Award, won by a substantial margin over Poole.

"Leading all those laps says a lot about our year," said Bowman (No. 22 St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Dodge). "We had a race-winning race car probably 15 of the (19) races. Like I've said, we had a ton of bad luck, leading at the (New Jersey) road course, pit strategy, something always seemed to bite us. But you'll have that. It was really cool to get to run a full year. It was a struggle to find funding every week but it was definitely worth it to get to work with these guys. I feel like if we wouldn't have had so much bad luck, we might be still standing out in Victory Lane doing all the championship stuff."

Cunningham Motorsports co-owner Kerry Scherer joined Bowman in his post-race winner's press conference and gave high praise to the young driver from Tucson, Ariz. Asked how he would rank against other drivers in Cunningham's history, Scherer did not have to think for long.

"It doesn't take too many fingers on my hand to get to Alex Bowman, as far as talent," he said. "I would say, I can't think of anybody, with the possible exception of Parker Kligerman, who was successful a couple of years ago, who has been able to accomplish what Alex was able to accomplish this year. He's just an amazing driver. He didn't just win four races this year; he had 10 top-three finishes. Not top-fives, top-threes. That meant that more than 50 percent of the time this year he finished in the top three, an amazing accomplishment. I would rank him right at the top."

ARCARacing.com will feature more notes and information from the Kansas Lottery 98.9, including highlights of special award winners and races, in the coming days.