DARLINGTON, S.C.: While on-site to support his Hendrick Motorsports No. 48 team in Sunday’s Goodyear 400 at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway, Alex Bowman is unsure when he can return to NASCAR Cup Series racing after fracturing his vertebrae in a sprint-car accident last month.
Bowman has missed the past three races of Dover, Kansas and Darlington and while there is optimism that the Phoenix, Ariz. native could return to his seat by the May 28th running by Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway, his actual timetable of return remains clouded.
“Every day is a little different,” Bowman said from the 1.33-mile speedway. “I feel way better than I did two weeks ago.”
He’ll return to the doctor on May 17 for more X-rays on the injury and an update on his recovery.
“I don’t have a time for an estimated return,” he added. “I have a doctor’s appointment this week to get some more x-rays to see how it’s healing and we’ll go from there. I’m obviously mobile. Super fortunate that the injury wasn’t any worse than it was.
“Obviously a lot of people have had that flat landing in a sprint car and have been hurt much worse than I was. I’ll heal up and come back when I can.”
Bowman said his back hurts the most when he coughs, sneezes, laughs or tries to sleep.
The seven-time Cup Series winner did, however, reveal he returned to the gym for amended workouts last week. Bowman said he could sit without too much discomfort but cautioned that the frequents movements in the driver’s seat would be painful and uncomfortable.
“I would say the most painful thing for me is laughing, coughing, sneezing or trying to sleep,” he detailed. “Like laying down hurts pretty bad. Standing up and walking around isn’t so bad. I’ve been able to walk the whole time, so that’s been nice. I’ve kind of kept myself busy.
“This week, I was able to get back into the gym a little bit, which was really good because not working out for a couple weeks is like the worst thing in the world for me. They have these air bands that kind of pump up around your muscles so you can work out with really light weights and still get a good workout from it. I was doing curls with five-pound weights. Typically, I do 10’s, so five’s was a good workout for me.”
Originally, the injury was thought to have kept Bowman out of his No. 48 Ally Chevrolet Camaro for three to four races. Xfinity Series standout Josh Berry has been filling in since his last race at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway in late April.
Bowman admitted he has hated missing races and watching another driver pilot his No. 48 Ally Chevrolet but realizes he has no one to blame other than himself.
“It’s pretty self-inflicted,” he acknowledged. “It was my choice to go sprint car racing and I knew what I was signing up for.
“You look at the races I missed the first two weeks. Statistically, Dover and Kansas are the best places for me by a mile, so it’s a huge bummer. Mentally to sit there and just watch – I mean how good the No. 48 ran at Dover, just knowing that I feel like I’m really good there, that’s my best race track and how good we could have been. And then kind of the same at Kansas. I love that race track, as well.
“So yeah, missed out on a lot of points, but that’s on me. I decided to go sprint car racing. I’m a big boy.. it’s on me. There’s nobody to blame. Just have to get healthy and makeup for it when I can come back.”
Bowman also said he wasn’t sure what to expect from Hendrick Motorsports management about his injury, especially after dealing with Elliott’s snowboarding accident a month earlier. To his surprise, he said both the team and his partners have been supportive.
“I talked to about everybody while I was laying in the hospital in Iowa,” Bowman explained. “I thought I was fixing to get yelled at, but I think the sympathy of the pain that I was in helped out (laughs). Everybody has been super supportive, so just appreciative of that because they had every opportunity to be pretty mad at me.
“Glad they weren’t and glad they’ve been nothing but supportive. You never want to make that call and let your team down like that. But at that point, there was nothing I could do. It had happened, it’s done. Just have to move forward from it.”
With six top-10 finishes to his credit before the injury, Bowman isn’t ready to throw his season away – knowing a win could propel himself and his No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports team into the Playoffs once approved by NASCAR.
“You look at what Kyle Busch has done and what other guys have done post-injury,” explained Bowman. “It sucks, right? It’s not where I want to be, especially with the season that we were having. But I know we can be as strong as we were before I got hurt when I come back.”
The powerhouse Hendrick Motorsports organization has been plagued with off-track injuries from two of its four Cup Series drivers this season.
In March, 2020 Cup Series champion Chase Elliott mixed six race after breaking his leg snowboarding in Colorado. The Dawsonville, Ga.-native returned at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway in Mid-April and finished third on Sunday at Darlington, his best finish since returning to the series. Berry also subbed for Elliott.
Bowman, who was hurt on his 30th birthday, said he believes at some point he’ll return to sprint car racing, but suggested that he is mindful that missing races in the Cup Series may not be in his or his team’s best interest.
“That’s a tough decision,” Bowman continued. “For me, at some point, yes. I just don’t know when that point will be. Obviously sitting out of the car again when I was really recently out of the car last year isn’t good for me. It’s not the money or anything. I want to win Cup races and I don’t like sitting out. At some point, yeah I will get back into a sprint car and a midget, for sure. I just don’t know when that point will be.”
After all, the back injury was the second racing-related injury to keep him out of the Cup Series cockpit in less than a year.
In September 2022, Bowman missed five Cup races because of a concussion he sustained in an accident last fall at Texas Motor Speedway. He returned for the season-finale at Phoenix (Ariz.) Raceway.
Should his doctor visit go better than expected this week, Bowman said it won’t be as easy as the doctor telling him he is good to go. He actually wants to get back in the seat of his racecar and feel it for himself to make sure he is not only comfortable but can drive the car and maneuver inside the cockpit as intended.
“I think for me, I just have to go get in a car; probably do some pit stops, maybe drive around a parking lot and go from there,” Bowman said.
“I think my appointment is Wednesday of this week. So, we’ll see from there, but hopefully it’s good news.”
Hendrick Motorsports team owner Rick Hendrick stressed following William Byron’s win on Sunday at Darlington Raceway that he does not want Bowman to return until he is 100 percent healthy.
“That’s a terrible injury,” said Hendrick. “If you come back too early, it can mess you up for the whole year. I want him to be right. He’s listening to the doctors. He has started working out. I think it’s a good shot he’ll be back pretty quick.
“I want him to be right when he gets back in the car. He would like to be back in Charlotte. He’s seeing the doctor this week, and he’s got to get in and out of the car. They’ve got to get the belts on him and see how he responds.”
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter or email: [email protected]
