Bowman, Hendrick resurgence lead charge into summer swing

There are two camps when it comes to that Justin Timberlake meme that tends to pop up in everyone's social media feeds the last week of April -- those of us that hate it ... and Hendrick Motorsports. Alex Bowman, Chase Elliott, Jimmie Johnson and William Byron must be big fans of when it's "gonna be May," and for good reason. RELATED: @nascarcasm's NASCAR-inspired May memes Over the course of the last four races stretching back to Talladega Superspeedway on April 28, the highly decorated organization has been the class of the field from top to bottom. According to Racing Insights, HMS over that stretch owns the most Busch Pole Awards (two), runner-ups (three), top fives (seven), top 10s (12) and laps led (416) along with the best team average finish (9.13). The team has also had at least one car finish in the top five during that run, the longest active streak. At the forefront of that push heading into Pocono? Bowman and Elliott, neither of which has finished worse than seventh the past month and have combined for a straight-up silly 3.375 average finish across eight starts between them. MORE: Driver stats "We have been running pretty well the last few weeks," Bowman said in a team release. " ... Greg (Ives, crew chief) and the guys have worked really hard on this 88 car and it is showing on track. We have made up a lot of ground in the point standings and we need to continue having weeks like we have been." Hendrick's recent prominence is particularly staggering given how many questions there were about the team's performance early in the year. All four cars hung around the low teens in the standings in the first two months of the season, but have seemingly found something as temperatures have heated up. It bodes well for the organization as we enter the sport's summer stretch. For example, Elliott had led zero laps through the first five races, but has paced the field in seven of the past eight for a total of 400 circuits. Bowman, too, has skyrocketed up the standings since sitting 21st post-Richmond. Thanks to a 91-point swing since then, "The Showman" has risen to 10th in the standings -- a place he's only been one other time in his career, and it was after this year's season-opening Daytona 500. As it stands halfway through the regular season, Hendrick Motorsports is one of just two organizations with four cars in the projected NASCAR Playoffs field, and it's evident that it has not only righted the ship -- there's a gust of wind in those sails pushing them ahead of everyone else after spending the first few weeks of the season still docked at the port.