Alex Bowman's absence sparks conversation surrounding extracurricular racing

DOVER, Del. — Alex Bowman is out for at least the next three NASCAR Cup Series races after suffering a fractured vertebra in a sprint car crash Tuesday night in Iowa.

His absence from the No. 48 Chevrolet marks the second time this season a Hendrick Motorsports driver has missed time due to injury, with 2020 Cup champion Chase Elliott out for six weeks earlier this year after breaking his leg snowboarding. The key difference is that Bowman incurred his injury while participating in another form of motorsports during the midweek.

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Jeff Andrews, president and general manager of Hendrick Motorsports, acknowledged the team is always evaluating its allowance of drivers to compete in races outside the NASCAR purview but doesn’t expect changes to its approach at this time.

“I think our message (to drivers) is, ‘be careful,’ ” Andrews said Saturday at Dover Motor Speedway. “It’s difficult because that’s something Alex has a passion for, something that he worked very hard to be better at, and we feel like it helped him over here in the Cup Series. Obviously, he’s having the best year of his career in a tough period. Temporary setback and we look for him to come back strong.”

Indeed, Bowman leads the circuit with a 10.3 average finish through 10 races. Josh Berry, who filled in for Elliott, will pilot the No. 48 car at Dover on Sunday (1 p.m. ET, FS1, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Bowman’s crew chief Blake Harris, who previously called the shots for Michael McDowell at Front Row Motorsports, has already carried the No. 48 team through adversity this season, including a 60-point penalty assessed after the event at Richmond.

“I think this year so far, we‘ve done a good job of just reacting with whatever has been thrown at us,” Harris said. “This will just be another thing that we look back on and we‘ll react accordingly. We‘ve got full support of Alex. We want him to get well. As soon as he‘s healthy and ready to come back, we‘ll plug him back in and keep digging.”

Kyle Larson, another of Bowman’s Hendrick teammates, owns the High Limit Sprint Car Series in which Bowman was competing Tuesday night. The duo flew to and from the track together, Larson said, adding that Bowman was in good spirits on the way back.

The 2021 champion, Larson cares deeply about dirt racing, particularly sprint car racing. Its importance to him has grown not only thanks to his success on the track but off it.

“I don’t just do it for fun. I don’t just do it for training. I also make a lot of money racing,” Larson said. “It’s more than that. It’s also a business for me. I make a good chunk of money racing, selling merchandise at the dirt tracks. I get to race in front of a lot of fans that might not get to see me at a race. So it’s all weighed. I weigh it all and I think there’s a lot of benefit that comes from it.”

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Tyler Reddick, driver of the No. 45 Toyota at 23XI Racing, grew up racing dirt. His appreciation for it offsets concerns of injuries, he explained.

“There’s risk in anything you do, right? So the big thing is make sure you’re having fun while you do this,” Reddick said. “You can’t do it forever. Surely, you can race a lot longer than you can do other things. But it’s all about having fun. I completely understand. I love dirt racing. I wish I could do more of it and will be doing more of it in the future. But it’s just part of it.”

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was also competing Tuesday in the same event where Bowman was injured. In the midst of his own strong season, Stenhouse feels sharper in his Cup efforts thanks to his time at the dirt track.

“As a race car driver, I feel like the more you’re in a race car, the better you are,” Stenhouse said. “I look back in my career and I quit racing sprint cars as soon as I started Cup, and that was at a request from Jack (Roush, team owner of RFK Racing) back then. And I felt like I kind of lost a little of an edge that I had being in a sprint car probably 30 or 40 times a year back then when I was in the (Xfinity) Series. For me, I feel like I just stay a lot more sharp.”

RFK Racing’s Brad Keselowski deals with both sides of the coin as both a driver and team co-owner — run elsewhere and sharpen up, but risk the chance of getting hurt.

“It’s a double-edged sword. We can’t live in bubble wrap,” Keselowski said. “And also, we’ve got to do everything we can to to make sure we’re here for our team and for our partners and fans. So there’s not a perfect answer to anything. There’s a lot of case-by-case situations and of course a lot of armchair quarterbacking to after things have already happened. So I don’t know if there’s one simple solution.”