Alex Bowman talks about his job security at Hendrick Motorsports in 2024. What did Bowman have to say about his future in the No. 48 car?
[autotag]Alex Bowman[/autotag] hasn’t won a NASCAR Cup Series race in over two years. Bowman’s last victory came at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in March 2022, and it’s now the longest winless streak of his Hendrick Motorsports career. Meanwhile, the driver of the No. 48 car’s teammates have seen a lot of success since his last win at Las Vegas in 2022.
Does Bowman feel his job security and future at Hendrick Motorsports could be shaky? Bowman talked to RACER’s Kelly Crandall about his job security and gave a positive outlook on his situation with the organization.
“No, definitely not,” Bowman said. “[Rick Hendrick] and Ally have made it super clear that they have faith in me. I don’t think the outside sometimes sees the whole picture of everything that’s going on. We’ve fought a lot of different things, and I think we’re all doing everything we can to get better.”
Ally has been committed to Bowman since he started driving the No. 48 car following Jimmie Johnson’s retirement. Bowman hasn’t seen the same success as his Hendrick Motorsports teammates, but he feels the organization believes in him. Bowman has proven to be a multi-race winner in the past, and a victory might be needed to build momentum.
The question to Alex Bowman was about the pressure to deliver for Hendrick Motorsports in its 40th-anniversary race next month at Martinsville Speedway. Bowman’s answer, however, centered on more than just one race. “It’s really important for the …
The question to Alex Bowman was about the pressure to deliver for Hendrick Motorsports in its 40th-anniversary race next month at Martinsville Speedway. Bowman’s answer, however, centered on more than just one race.
“It’s really important for the company,” Bowman said Tuesday during a media event promoting the April 7 event. “It means a lot to everybody here, and I want to win that race. But that’s every week for me right now, with how things have gone. So, yeah, pressure is up to 10 at every moment.”
Hendrick Motorsports will be the center of attention at Martinsville, where Geoff Bodine’s victory in the spring of 1984 kept Rick Hendrick from closing down his first-year operation because it was taking more money and resources than Hendrick had anticipated. But the victory, the first for Hendrick in the NASCAR Cup Series, kept the company afloat and Bodine went on to win twice more that season.
The rest, as they say, is history. Hendrick Motorsports is now the winningest organization in the Cup Series.
All four Hendrick Motorsports drivers will all have special ruby red paint schemes at Martinsville Speedway. Jeff Gordon and Bodine are the co-grand marshals. Rick Hendrick is driving the pace car ahead of the Cook Out 400.
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While Bowman is a former Martinsville Speedway winner, another one is sorely needed for the No. 48 team.
“It’s more just wanting to win and wanting to get back to performing how I know we can,” Bowman said. “Selfishly, I don’t really care what other people think. I don’t want only to win races because I drive for Hendrick Motorsports, I want to win races for me. I want the trophies for me.
“I don’t really give a (expletive) about the rest of it. Running how we have has been so frustrating. I’ve worked super hard and done everything that I can to get back to where we need to be. So, I don’t feel outside pressure, it’s just me wanting to win for me.”
It’s not a matter of Bowman thinking about job security.
“No, definitely not,” Bowman said. “Mr. Hendrick and [primary sponsor] Ally have made it super clear that they have faith in me. I don’t think the outside sometimes sees the whole picture of everything that’s going on. We’ve fought a lot of different things, and I think we’re all doing everything we can to get better.”
Bowman has not won since the 2022 spring race in Las Vegas. This time a year ago, Bowman was leading the Cup Series point standings and looked poised to win sooner rather than later. But then Bowman broke his back in a sprint car crash in late April and the season was derailed. The team never showed the same strength from early in the season when Bowman returned.
Through the first five races of the 2024 season, Bowman is 12th in the standings with two top-10 finishes. Bowman’s crew chief, Blake Harris, has a sentiment similar to that of his driver. As the leader of the race team, Harris has focused on making sure everyone resets each weekend and accept that sometimes a race will fall their way and sometimes it won’t.
“Last year, it was obvious with the things we had to fight,” Harris said. “But this year we go to Las Vegas, one of his stronger tracks and I’m like, ‘Man, we’re going to go execute and have a good day.’ We had a not-great stop there in the middle of the race that set us back and we didn’t qualify well. We had to come up through the field twice, and it was just like a gut punch, one after another.
“We go to Phoenix and drive up to eighth; the cautions fell and we go back to 20th again and it’s like, ‘Man, what do we have to do to get momentum?’ Then we take a race that’s complete chaos (Bristol), qualify 29th, have everything in front of us not to have a great day, and we were able to overcome that and drive up inside the top 10 and get a top five out of it.”
“It’s frustrating,” Harris continued. “I want to sit on the pole and win every race and we haven’t been able to do that. We’ve got to continue to grow and execute with our group and not let the frustration carry over to the next week because we’re fully capable. We had a really good race car last weekend and regardless of how bad on paper Phoenix or Vegas looked or us, nothing held us back from being able to go compete at Bristol at the level that we did. I think we can do that every week.”
Bowman and crew chief Harris acknowledge the frustration of having under-delivered thus far, but both feel success has been hovering just out of reach. Rusty Jarrett/Motorsport Images
Harris was paired with Bowman in 2022 when signed by Hendrick Motorsports. It was his second year being a Cup Series crew chief and with a smile, he admitted he would have scripted his first few seasons differently. However, he’s still grateful for the opportunity, the resources and the people behind the team. And, in the combination of himself and Bowman.
“I love working with him,” Harris said. “No, it hasn’t gone the way we’ve wanted, but we’ve had opportunities to win races. We might not be where we want to be every week, but we’ve had plenty of times we’ve been in the mix, and things just haven’t fallen our way. When it does click and it does go our way, I think it’ll be fine, and we can get on a roll.”
Bowman is eager for the team’s capabilities to turn into consistent results — at Martinsville Speedway and elsewhere.
“We’re doing all we can to get back to where we need to be, but the potential is definitely there,” Bowman said. “I think Blake and I work well together, and everybody gives us all the tools we need to be successful. It’s just been a rough go of it. There’s no reason why we can’t turn it around.”
Alex Bowman suggests that NASCAR doesn’t put the NextGen car on dirt tracks. Find out what Bowman had to say about the subject!
[autotag]Alex Bowman[/autotag] has experience in dirt racing, but not as much as other drivers in the NASCAR Cup Series. Most notably, Kyle Larson and Christopher Bell are regarded as the top dirt track drivers in the sport. Larson believes that NASCAR should avoid dirt racing, while Bell thinks more than one dirt track would be ideal if they are on the schedule. What about Bowman?
According to NBC Sports’ Dustin Long, Bowman appears to have a similar mindset to Larson. In his eyes, the racing at Bristol Dirt didn’t live up to the hype. The driver of the No. 48 car talked about that idea on Saturday.
“I think it’s a car designed to race on pavement, and we should probably stick with that,” Bowman said. “I think if [NASCAR wants] to get us all together and go race dirt cars somewhere, I think that’s a great idea, but I think this car belongs on pavement.”
In its current state, the NextGen car likely doesn’t belong on dirt tracks, but with a few improvements, it would go in the right direction. The last race at Bristol Dirt was the best version of the event, as it only got better over those three years. NASCAR probably won’t return to Bristol Dirt, but another dirt track could be an option down the line.
Hendrick Motorsports revealed Alex Bowman’s new Ally Best Friends paint scheme in 2024. Check out Bowman’s new look for his No. 48 car!
[autotag]Hendrick Motorsports[/autotag] is off to a hot start in 2024. William Byron won the 2024 Daytona 500, and Kyle Larson won at Las Vegas Motor Speedway two weeks later. Now, the focus is on Chase Elliott and [autotag]Alex Bowman[/autotag], who both missed the playoffs in 2023. For Bowman, he hopes to punch his ticket to the playoffs by winning with a new paint scheme at Phoenix Raceway.
On Tuesday morning, Ally Racing revealed Alex Bowman’s new “Ally Best Friends” paint scheme for this weekend’s Cup Series race at Phoenix. The No. 48 car features pawprints representing local shelters that Ally has helped over the years. Plus, a few of the dogs that Ally has befriended while helping Best Friends.
The most "paw-some" scheme of the season returns to @PhoenixRaceway this weekend!
Bowman’s new paint scheme is really good, and he hopes that it transforms into an excellent run at Phoenix Raceway. The Hendrick Motorsports driver’s best finish at Phoenix in the NextGen car is ninth, with an 18.5 average finishing position. Bowman hopes to break through at Phoenix to join his teammates in the playoffs while bringing Ally and Best Friends to victory lane.
What NASCAR looked at and how it determined when to throw the late caution, making William Byron the Daytona 500 winner.
No one wants a NASCAR race to finish under caution and definitely not the Daytona 500. But sometimes, it’s necessary, and that’s exactly what happened Monday night at the end of the rain-delayed 2024 Daytona 500 when William Byron took the checkered flag at Daytona International Speedway.
Finishing a race under caution — when the yellow flag is out and yellow lights are flashing — is hardly ideal because drivers aren’t actually racing. They’re maintaining their track positions and driving at a slowed, set pace, which doesn’t produce thrilling finishes.
But fans may want to know how and why NASCAR reached the decision to throw the caution flag at the end of Monday’s Daytona 500.
Here’s what happened: With a little more than one lap to go in the 200-lap race, Byron was leading the field on the inside lane ahead of Austin Cindric with Ross Chastain leading the outside lane. When Byron moved up to the outside lane, Chastain and Cindric made contact, which sent them both sliding off the track.
Unscathed, Byron and teammate Alex Bowman continued in the outside lane and crossed the start-finish line as the white flag was waving, signaling the last lap. But because of the crash, NASCAR threw the caution.
And because the caution came out after the last-lap white flag, and because Byron was the leader at the time of the yellow flag, he would be declared the winner once he completed the final caution lap.
Though Byron’s No. 24 Chevrolet edged out Bowman’s No. 48 at the time of the caution flag, it was close.
So how did NASCAR officials come to this decision? NASCAR senior vice president of competition, Elton Sawyer, explained what factors were taken into consideration. He said, via NASCAR.com:
“At the end of a race, we use all available resources. So we’ll use [the time the] caution comes out. We’ll use video, timestamps. At the time of caution, it was the 24 [car] over the 48 [car].
“Obviously, we would love to have left it green and let it finish naturally. But once the [No.] 2 car had spun and started back up the race track and was going to be into traffic and oncoming traffic there, there was no choice but to throw the caution at that time.”
As Sawyer noted, the race likely would have continued under green if not for Cindric in the No. 2 Ford sliding back up the track into oncoming traffic. Understandably, that situation was dangerous, and NASCAR had throw the yellow flag.
After taking the white flag, @WilliamByron was the leader at the time of the final caution.
Alex Bowman discusses his agonizing second-place finish at the 2024 Daytona 500. Find out what Bowman had to say about coming up short!
[autotag]Alex Bowman[/autotag] was 0.006 seconds away from being a Daytona 500 champion. After a late wreck, Bowman and William Byron had the advantage over Ross Chastain as teammates. The two drivers got to the front and dueled it out when they hit the white flag. Unfortunately for Bowman, a crash on the final lap cut his major push from Christopher Bell short for a second-place finish.
It was a very disappointing situation for Bowman, who could have won the Daytona 500 if the caution came out just one second later. Following the race, the driver of the No. 48 car climbed out of his car and talked about finishing in second place at the 2024 Daytona 500.
“Proud of [William Byron] and his team – they deserved it there at the end,” Bowman said. “They did all the right things and I feel like we did too there at the end. Had to go up and block the top lane and that just hurt the middle for a bit. We got the middle back rolling and then they all started crashing. Just proud of everybody on this No. 48 Ally Chevy team.”
William Byron *barely* beat Alex Bowman to win the 2024 Daytona 500.
It’s Byron’s first Daytona 500 victory as the No. 24 car returns to victory lane in the Great American Race. pic.twitter.com/8AduUkx5BC
“Super pumped for everybody at Hendrick Motorsports. It’s 40 years to the day since the first Hendrick Motorsports race, so cool to see William in victory lane. A good day for our Ally Camaro, as well. Second place in the Daytona 500. Hendrick Motorsports 1-2. Great for Chevrolet and everybody involved. Wish it was one spot better, but still proud of the whole team.”
It will take a while for Bowman to get over this defeat, but it’s promising to see the No. 48 car up front after a tough 2023 NASCAR season. Bowman suffered a back injury in a sprint car racing accident and missed several races. Now, Bowman starts off the 2024 season with a second-place finish in the Great American Race, hoping to carry that momentum into the new year.
Alex Bowman provides a big update on his racing plans outside of NASCAR in 2024. What did Bowman have to say after a rough 2023 season?
[autotag]Alex Bowman[/autotag] suffered an injury that knocked him out for three NASCAR Cup Series races after crashing during a sprint car event on his birthday. Bowman came back after his back injury but was never the same again. The driver of the No. 48 car missed the 2023 playoffs and scored the least top-10 finishes in his time with Hendrick Motorsports.
Bowman jumped on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio and discussed his future of racing outside NASCAR. Will the Hendrick Motorsports driver compete in sprint car races during the 2024 season? Based on his response, don’t count on that happening.
“For Ally, Hendrick Motorsports and everybody that puts so much into the No. 48 program, I can’t afford to miss more races,” Bowman said. “I need to be in the car every week You look at what it did to us this year. We went from being extremely strong every week, up front in points to a really tough rest of the year. I don’t need to do that again.”
RETWEET TO CONGRATULATE ALEX BOWMAN ON HIS NASCAR CUP SERIES WIN IN LAS VEGAS! pic.twitter.com/i5yaYKE4RV
“So, I won’t be in a winged sprint car for the foreseeable future. I would say when I’m done Cup racing, I would love to do the Outlaw tour. It’s just going to be something that I’m going to push off until I’m at that point in my life where it’s what I want to do and it’s not going to take away from anything else. My job on Sundays is super important to me. Unfortunately, this year I was doing something for fun that greatly took away from what I do on Sundays. I’m going to avoid that going forward.”
It sounds like Bowman will have to wait until he is done racing in the Cup Series to compete in a winged sprint car again. It was an unfortunate accident for the Hendrick Motorsports driver, but he can’t afford to miss more time in the No. 48 car. Bowman will still be involved with his dirt team; however, he won’t be driving any of his entries.
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 …
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).”
While hampered by his fitness as well as uncharacteristic mistakes, Bowman is encouraged by signs of speed he showed late in the year. Nigel Kinrade/Motorsport Images
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.”
Alex Bowman’s new Ally paint scheme for the 2024 NASCAR season has been revealed. Take a look at Bowman’s new Ally scheme for 2024!
Ally has proven to provide great paint schemes every season, even going back to the days of Jimmie Johnson in the No. 48 car. Now, [autotag]Alex Bowman[/autotag] drives the entry and has been a consistent fixture within the Hendrick Motorsports program since 2018. On Friday morning, Bowman became the third driver in the organization to have a paint scheme released for 2024.
Hendrick Motorsports revealed Bowman’s new Ally paint scheme for the 2024 NASCAR season. It features a purple base with white numbers and logos, which differs from 2023. Last year, the No. 48 Ally Chevrolet had two paint schemes, one for day races and the other for night races. This will not be the case in 2024.
Overall, this is a very clean paint scheme for Bowman with an interesting twist. It looks like a solid base scheme from afar, but it has several hidden elements when seen close up or on the race track. Over the course of the week, every Hendrick Motorsports driver has gotten a new paint scheme except Kyle Larson.
Alex Bowman had a down year with Hendrick Motorsports in the NASCAR Cup Series. Here, you can check out Bowman’s 2023 season in review!
[autotag]Alex Bowman[/autotag] had a good start to the 2023 NASCAR season but never found his form after a back injury in sprint car racing. Bowman finished the year with four top-4 finishes and 10 top-10 finishes. Unfortunately for the driver of the No. 48 car, he missed the playoffs after missing three races due to his back injury.
Bowman had three top-5 finishes and six top-10 finishes through the first 10 races. In the final 23 races, he only had one top-5 finish and four top-10 finishes. It was not a pretty return. Bowman closed the campaign with 89 laps led (21st-best) and a 17.2 average finishing position (16th-best); however, what went wrong for him?
The Hendrick Motorsports driver didn’t register a top-10 finish until the 11th race after his return. Not all of it was Bowman’s fault, as he suffered several issues along the way that affected his ability to make the playoffs. Maybe he would have made the playoffs on points with some luck. Bowman didn’t have any momentum after leading the points standings earlier in the year.
Bowman was never fully healthy following his return, so it is easy to cut him some slack. If not for his injury, the driver of the No. 48 car could have competed for wins and most likely would have made the playoffs. Bowman and crew chief Blake Harris will look to improve upon 2023 and win a race during the 2024 season.
