Bowman has frustrating return to NASCAR competition

Alex Bowman had high hopes for his welcome back to NASCAR, but wound up disappointed with both the result and the performance at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Bowman was collected in a multi-car incident on lap 160 of Sunday’s race, which ended up being a day-ender. The No. 48 team went through initial repairs on pit road, but the car still had severe issues when Bowman returned to the track. It was a quick assessment in the DVP area in the garage before pulling the plug.

The first driver listed out of the race, Bowman, will be credited with a last-place finish.

“I’m fine, but obviously, just a frustrating day,” Bowman said. “You come to one of your better places, and I don’t know if we just misjudged it being in Group A (for practice and qualifying) or what. I thought we were OK in practice, and to start the race, we were just in trouble.

“So, bummer we didn’t get a chance to work on it. … Just ran really bad and then got caught up in somebody else’s mess.”

The incident occurred early in the second stage. It started when Shane van Gisbergen spun on his own and slid up the racetrack into the path of Bowman, John Hunter Nemechek, and David Gilliland. Bowman was running 31st at the time. He had been lapped just past the race’s 100-lap mark.

“It felt good,” said Bowman of being back at the racetrack and with his team. “Frustrated right now, right? This is one of my favorite race tracks, and we just performed really poorly. But at the same time, it’s nice to be back driving a race car.

“I appreciate everyone’s support. You all know how much I love attention, so I’m glad this weekend can be over with and just go do my job next week without everyone asking me how I feel. But I feel really good and definitely thankful to be back.”

A vertigo diagnosis in early March sidelined Bowman for the last four Cup Series races. The symptoms came on unexpectedly during the race at the Circuit of the Americas, prompting Bowman to pull into the garage before the checkered flag and hand over the seat. Saturday, Bowman revealed that among the issues he was dealing with inside the race car that day were dizziness and vomiting.

In his return, Bowman didn’t have any different emotions going into the race. The uphill task of improving their performance and making up ground in the point standings has occupied his mind.

“We need, like, one good week to start the ball rolling in the right direction, and honestly, I thought this could be a really good one for us, even after qualifying,” Bowman said. “I think this is a good place for us historically, and we just didn’t have it today. Hopefully, we can get things pointed in the right direction next week at Kansas and go from there.”

As a true competitor, what happened Sunday overshadowed how it might have been fun for Bowman to be a race car driver again for the first time in over a month.

“Maybe [it was fun] in practice,” Bowman said. “But honestly, Cup racing is just so hard, and the pressure is so high, and everything means so much here, it’s not fun. You’re all in, everything matters, and when you’re running as poorly as we did, it probably sucks the little bit of fun. Winning is fun, obviously. Rolling around 28th is not so fun.

“It was back to business. Back to work. It’s hard to say that’s a really fun thing, which is crazy because we’re driving in circles. … But when here, it’s all that matters and every little thing matters so much that a day like today is tough to have fun.”