Alex Bowman might not sit around wondering what could have been for his 2023 season had he not broken his back, but there is no denying what a frustrating NASCAR season it was for his Hendrick Motorsports team.
It started out well enough. Bowman led the Cup Series point standings in early April — the first time he’d done so in his career — in addition to having a series-leading average finish. The way the No. 48 Ally team was performing, it felt like just a matter of time before Bowman earned a victory.
But in late April, Bowman fractured a vertebra in his back in a sprint car accident. Bowman was sidelined for three points-paying races and the All-Star Race.
“It’s hard for me to sit here and say, well, if I wouldn’t have broken my back, things would be way different because I feel pretty good at this point,” Bowman said. “(We) just really (struggled) to execute and it seems like whenever we’re fast, something happens, and when we’re slow, you can’t put us out of our misery. But it’s definitely been frustrating.
“A lot of it is self-induced, and some of it is not. That’s just racing. … Not a lot of what ifs, just a lot of lessons learned this year.”
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Bowman went winless and failed to make the postseason, ultimately finishing 20th in the championship standings. He was the lowest-finishing Hendrick Motorsports driver. The spark the team had when the season started never rekindled when Bowman returned to the seat.
Obviously it doesn’t help to be sidelined while others are continuing to get seat time and bettering their equipment. However, it can’t be ignored that Bowman continued to be hindered by his injured back. Some weeks were better than others. A bad one was after the Coca-Cola 600, NASCAR’s longest race, which left him barely after to walk. The Indianapolis road course also took its toll late in the season, and the Martinsville Speedway short track also left Bowman feeling pretty sore. Whenever the series visited a heavy braking track, Bowman felt the effects.
Statistically, Bowman had his worst year at Hendrick Motorsports, whether in the No. 88 when he took over for the retired Dale Earnhardt Jr. or now the No. 48 after Jimmie Johnson retired. Bowman earned the fewest top 10 finishes (10) he’s had in six seasons with the organization and his worst average finish (17.2) and championship finish. He led 89 laps.
“I think we’ve had some bad summers, but typically, like last year, we were in a good spot in the playoffs before I got hurt,” Bowman said, referring to the concussion he suffered at Texas Motor Speedway. “Typically, we’ve had a lot of highlights throughout the years and this year, there haven’t been many of those other than leading the points at the beginning of the year. It’s definitely been tough, but I feel like we’ve got a really good group, and I’ve learned a lot as a person on kind of how to handle some of those things, and definitely grown from it for sure.”
The biggest lesson for Bowman was not the bad weekends keep him down.
“In previous years, I’d have a bad weekend and hold on to that for the whole week and kind of make me miserable the whole week and really tear myself apart over my own mistakes,” he said. “I think this year, there’s been so many bad weeks that I’ve really had to learn to deal with them in a better way, be able to positively look forward to the next week and be better at those things. It wasn’t fun to figure out how to do, but definitely, I guess, a requirement for a season like this.”
Or, to be blunter, “You get kicked in the teeth that many weeks in a row, you kind of have to (learn to deal with it better).”
Bowman can only hope the winter break will be good for him and his team. While the driver continues to heal, the team will digest a season’s worth of information to be better prepared for next year.
“I think some of it is just being able to hit the reset button and just kind of start over,” Bowman said. “But at the same time, I think we have a good group on the 48 team. Blake [Harris, crew chief] and I are working well together. Like in Las Vegas, we were really fast and I just crashed the car. It’s mistakes that I don’t typically see from myself.
“So that’s been frustrating, but at the same time, there’s been a lot of weeks that we’ve just been way off. So, maybe hitting the reset button may help.”