LAS VEGAS: Alex Bowman attempts to look on the bright side, but some times the clouds just happen to find the 31-year-old racer.
After a hard-fought five races in the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, where Bowman scored an average of 37.8 points entering the Roval at Charlotte Motor Speedway, his No. 48 Ally Chevrolet was disqualified in post-race inspection for not meeting the minimum weight requirement.
Suddenly the driver who was fifth in the standings entering the elimination race in the Round of 12 found himself out of the running for the series title.
“Blake (Harris) called me and wasn’t sure of things,” Bowman said of his crew chief. “The next thing I got was your (Bob Pockrass) tweet—and I proceeded to throw my phone into the pool. My phone proceeded to call 911 and tell ‘em I was in a car crash (laughs), so my Sunday night wasn’t very good.
“It couldn’t happen to anyone else that way, right? Just part of life. Moving on and focusing on going fast this weekend.”
Las Vegas Motor Speedway has been a solid track for the Hendrick Motorsports driver. He won the 2022 spring race and has two top fives in his last four starts at the 1.5-mile track.
But the last three seasons have been a struggle for the affable racer. After a breakout year in 2021, when Bowman scored four wins, he triumphed at Vegas in the third race of the following season but experienced a rash of wrecks in the second half of the season before a vicious shunt at Texas Motor Speedway left him concussed.
Bowman missed the next five races and returned at Phoenix Raceway for the season finale—and his final race with crew chief Greg Ives. Entering 2023, Bowman signed a three-year extension with HMS and came back with a vengeance under the direction of Harris. He took an early lead in the series standings with four consecutive top 10s to start 2023 but was sidelined in May due to a sprint car accident that injured his back.
After missing three races—and the Playoffs—the No. 48 team regrouped. This season, Bowman and his crew have been the models of consistency and poster children for points racing.
Despite winning the Chicago Street Course on July 7 and qualifying for Playoffs, two months later, Bowman found himself in the rumor mill again. Although he has two years remaining on his contract, rumors swirled regarding his status with the team for next year.
His disqualification from the Roval—and being eliminated from the Playoffs—just feels like another day in the life of Alex Bowman. Over the last few years, he has learned to accept situations that are out of his control and move on.
“Honestly, it’s just part of the deal,” Bowman said. “We win and lose as a team. We’ve worked really hard and done a lot of things right and unfortunately, in that situation, we did something wrong. There’s no way around that. Really all we can do is continue to run well the rest of the year and continue to do what we’ve been doing
“I think this is a good place for us to go and try to win. Hopefully, we’ll have a shot at it.”
And the iPhone at the bottom of Bowman’s pool?
“It hit the bottom of the pool and I walked away,” Bowman said. “Twenty minutes later, I was like, ‘I should go back and get my phone out of the pool. iPhones are waterproof. When I say ‘throw’, I kind of tossed it because I knew my phone was about to start blowing up and I really didn’t want to see any of it at that point, right?
“Luckily, your phone doesn’t have service from the bottom of the pool—so nothing came of it. But I guess they have this new thing where they report that you’ve been in a car crash if the phone feels something, so that happened…I guess you could write that I did it out of rage, but really I just didn’t want to see my phone any more.”
Follow Lee Spencer on Twitter @CandiceSpencer or email her at: [email protected].
