While Shane van Gisbergen was dominating at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez on Sunday (June 15), Alex Bowman was experiencing a personal victory of his own.
Just seven days earlier, Bowman had a vicious wreck at Michigan International Speedway. Though there was never any talk of him missing Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race, he was still feeling the aftereffects of the impact when he got to Mexico City.
Still, Bowman overcame the pain and physical limitations to finish fourth in the Viva México 250.
“Yeah, I think running well probably made it easier than it could have been,” Bowman told Prime Video. “Just proud of the whole Ally 48 team. I put us behind this week.
“In full transparency, I couldn’t walk on Wednesday, so I missed all my sim stuff. I missed all my meetings just trying to get back going. And I had a lot of help from a lot of people to fix whatever the hell was going on.”
The struggle of going to the track hurt was intensified by Bowman having to travel out of the country to a completely new track for him to race at. It was his first trip out of the U.S., and while others were experiencing Mexican culture, he was confined to his bed when he wasn’t in the racecar.
“This week has been a lot, right?” Bowman said. “And travel for this week has been a lot, just with what I had going on. I wish I could have walked around the city more, enjoyed some of that more than I did, because I just laid in a hotel bed all weekend.
“… I’ve got to thank my girlfriend Chloe [Henderson] for picking me up off the floor and getting me some help.”
But Bowman was locked in once his racing duties started, taking part in both practices and qualifying before the race. However, due to missing the meetings and sim sessions during the week, Bowman started the race weekend behind, as evident by his finishes of 29th and 26th in the two practices. He also qualified in 29th.
“Honestly, my goal was just to come here and make all the laps,” Bowman said. “And to end up with a top five, I’ll definitely take it. Proud of Blake [Harris, crew chief] and all the guys. And yeah, I wish I wouldn’t have burned the tires off so badly at the end, but we were pretty decent.”
Once the green flag flew, Bowman’s injuries didn’t matter anymore. He worked his way up through the field with a good car and solid strategy, finishing third in the second stage before taking home fourth place.
The Hendrick Motorsports driver previously missed races due to injury in 2022 (concussion) and 2023 (fractured vertebra), but thankfully the Michigan wreck last week didn’t cause him to miss any time.
Entering Sunday, Bowman had been going through a rough patch well before the Michigan wreck. He had finished 27th or worse in seven of the previous nine races. He was only 13 points above the playoff cut line entering Mexico City, and van Gisbergen’s win bumps that line up.
However, thanks to the 41 points scored on Sunday, Bowman actually added nine points to his buffer, putting him 22 points over the cut line.
Michael Massie joined Frontstretch in 2017 and has served as the Content Director since 2020.
Massie, a Richmond, Va., native, has covered NASCAR, IndyCar, SRX and the CARS Tour. Outside of motorsports, the Virginia Tech grad and Green Bay Packers minority owner can be seen cheering on his beloved Hokies and Packers.