Alex Bowman in 2023 was, to be frank, a tad underwhelming. The driver of the #48 car in the NASCAR Cup Series had big expectations after making the post-season the last handful of years and notching five wins over the previous two seasons. It seemed 2023 would be the year Bowman was primed to take a leap. As fate would have it, it’d be a monumental step back for the 30-year-old driver.
Without much context, Bowman’s 2023 was quite mediocre. He averaged a 17.5 finish with four DNFs. He won just one pole at the Daytona 500, continuing a streak, and missed the playoffs entirely by a healthy margin.
Context Is Key
Embed from Getty ImagesWhat these stats don’t tell you though is that Bowman missed four races in 2023. He suffered a broken back during a dirt race on his 30th birthday. Before this injury, the #48 team was maybe the most consistent car on the grid. In six of the first ten races of the year, Bowman finished inside the top 10. Three of those races are inside the top five. Before the back injury, he and the car had serious speed and was a constant threat to victory lane.
But somewhere between the missed time, the car lost speed. When Bowman came back in Charlotte at the Coca-Cola 600 he finished in a respectable P12. That would be the last time he was inside the top 12 until the Indy Road Course almost three months later. Alex Bowman couldn’t even pick up a stage win, his best stage performance after the injury was at Michigan (P7, P5), a race where he wrecked in stage three and couldn’t finish.
So this piece is super-negative sounding already, let’s get to the point. Why isn’t 2023 a good representation of what Alex Bowman and the #48 car really are?
The Injury
Embed from Getty ImagesWe obviously went over what this car looked like before the injury, consistently giving quality races. But breaking your back and trying to race a stock car is by no means an easy task. Bowman revealed that the injury had been bothering him up until the fall Martinsville race across the heavy-breaking tracks. These injuries take time. It’s apparent that Bowman rushed back, expediting the healing process, and battling through to try and get the team into the playoffs. It’s also worth noting just a few months prior, Bowman suffered a late-season concussion at Texas that took him out of the playoffs in 2022.
Just ask Denny Hamlin how you look after breaking your back. He went through a similar injury back in 2013. He missed two month’s worth of action from March until May, and although put up a second and fourth-place finish in his first couple of races back, he fell off a steep cliff. It wasn’t until October he found his groove again and put up consistent top-10 finishes. This isn’t to compare Alex Bowman to Hamlin on a talent scale, Hamlin is matched by few in that department. This is just to show how much an injury like that can affect you as a driver.
Chase Elliott Had Similar Struggles
Embed from Getty ImagesIt was also a shockingly down year for Bowman’s teammate, the most popular driver in NASCAR Chase Elliott, and the #9 car. Elliott missed the playoffs due to injury plus a game suspension for purposely crashing Denny Hamlin at the Coca-Cola 600. But it was clearly evident that the #9 car had little speed after Elliott returned.
Elliott’s stats for 2023 ended up as seven top-fives and 15 top-10s. Elliott ended up with fewer points than Bowman after the regular season finale, missing the playoffs. As far as playoff performances, Elliott did have something to race for, as the #9 car made the owner’s championship, and performed moderately better than his #48 teammate. But Elliott struggled to find speed all season as well.
The other two Hendrick Motorsport drivers, Kyle Larson and William Byron, made the championship four with little sweat. So what was the deal with Elliott and Bowman? The combination of injuries and missing races truly helped. But HMS Senior Vice President and NASCAR legend Jeff Gordon back in July delivered some telling comments on how the organization intended to “help” Bowman and Elliott make the playoffs.
With two drivers currently below the cutline, will attention and resources get shifted to the No. 9 and No. 48 teams for the final seven races of the regular season?
— SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Ch. 90) (@SiriusXMNASCAR) July 13, 2023
❌ @JeffGordonWeb says not yet.
More from @TeamHendrick’s Vice Chairman on #TMDNASCAR → https://t.co/qesEcbI9Hq pic.twitter.com/7hiHtAHd1E
So take that one and make whatever you will out of it. We have the benefit of hindsight to see how those cars performed down the line. Alex Bowman only had two top-10s after those comments, the same goes for Chase Elliott.
Closing Thoughts
Embed from Getty ImagesSo, with that, I hope that I could dispel some of the Alex Bowman doubt that’s circled around the Twitter-sphere (or X-sphere, if you’re that kind of guy). He’s been a solid driver since jumping in the 48. In 2022 he got a win, with a dozen finishes in the top-10. In 2021 there were four wins and 16 finishes in the top-10. Both were strong playoff seasons. In 2023 he was on pace to top his marks in ’22 but because of the conversation we just had, he fell short.
Let’s breathe, and give Bowman a shot at redemption in 2024. It was a wacky year, and hopefully, the #48 makes a strong return to form, if not an improvement, from seasons prior. But just don’t give up on him yet.
If you enjoyed this content, or hate it and want to argue with me, follow me on Twitter @KalebEmcee! Also, read up on the rest of the NASCAR content Belly Up Sports has to offer here!
