Alex Bowman thought his career was over when he climbed out of his car at Circuit of the Americas five weeks ago, dizzy, vomiting, the world spinning around him. On Sunday at Bristol Motor Speedway, he’ll strap back into the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet and tackle one of the most physically punishing tracks in NASCAR.
“Honestly, yeah, when I got out at COTA, I was like, this is probably it,” Bowman said Saturday. “That was what was going through my head.”
It wasn’t. But the road back was ugly. His first attempt at driving again, a short test at Hendrick’s Ten Tenths Motor Club in Charlotte, lasted only a couple of laps before the symptoms returned. Weeks of doctor visits followed, with team owner Rick Hendrick personally flying Bowman to specialists around the country.
Gradually, through karting, simulator work, pit practice, and targeted rehab, the dizziness receded. Bowman was originally slated to miss Bristol entirely. His medical clearance came a week ahead of schedule, and Hendrick Motorsports president Jeff Andrews made it clear there was never any question about whose seat it was.
“Alex Bowman has always been the driver of the No. 48 Ally Chevrolet, and we never had questions about whose seat that was,” Andrews told reporters. He added that Bowman was cleared without restrictions — no backup driver on standby, no contingency plan. Full send.
Bowman’s gratitude bordered on self-deprecation. He acknowledged putting HMS in “a tough spot multiple times” over the past four years: a concussion at Texas Motor Speedway in 2022 that cost him five races, a fractured vertebra from a dirt sprint car crash in 2023 that shelved him for four more, and now this. Andrews literally shook his head at Bowman’s suggestion that the team had given him “more grace than I deserve.”
The timing of Bowman’s return is almost perversely fitting. Bristol’s steeply banked concrete half-mile produces 15-second laps and margins measured in hundredths of a second. It is nobody’s idea of an easy re-entry.
It’s probably the worst place possible to come back to,” Bowman admitted. He qualified 27th. He holds two of the last three poles here, and the track is typically one of his strongest.
He’s recalibrated his expectations to a top 10 or top 15 — a jarring shift for a driver accustomed to contending for wins at this facility. While Bowman recovered, the No. 48 team cycled through three substitute drivers: sim racer Myatt Snider, who made his unexpected Cup debut at COTA, then O’Reilly Auto Parts Series regulars Anthony Alfredo and Justin Allgaier for the subsequent four races. The team sits 34th in owners’ points through seven events.
Crew chief Blake Harris and his crew have spent the season reacting on the fly, and adding Bowman back into the mix required yet another scramble — retrofitting the cockpit to his specifications on short notice. Harris didn’t mind. “Once Alex was approved to get back in and get all his stuff back in the car, it wasn’t much different to what that’s kind of been to us every week,” he said.
Teammate Chase Elliott, fresh off delivering Hendrick its first win of 2026 at Martinsville two weeks ago, offered the kind of quiet endorsement that carries weight in a four-car superteam. “The work he’s put in to get back and to get back this fast — that takes a lot of commitment and also a lot of courage,” Elliott said.
Hendrick Motorsports now has all four drivers in their cars for the first time since late February: Elliott starting 18th, Kyle Larson eighth after leading 210 laps in Saturday’s support race, William Byron from the rear after unapproved adjustments, and Bowman from 27th with something to prove. Bristol is a terrible place to shake off rust. It is, however, a perfect place to prove you belong.
Bowman has spent the last four years absorbing hits that would have ended lesser careers. The vertigo is gone. The doubt, apparently, never had a chance.
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