Alex Bowman is again. On Wednesday, Hendrick Motorsports introduced he’ll return to the #48 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 for the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Sunday after lacking the final three NASCAR Cup Sequence points-paying races with a fractured vertebra.
“It’s a lift for all of us to have Alex return to the #48 automobile this weekend at our house observe,” commented workforce proprietor Rick Hendrick. “He’s nonetheless seventeenth in factors, which says quite a bit about how properly the workforce carried out at first of the 12 months. Alex has labored laborious to rehab the damage and are available again sturdy, and I search for him to proceed having a championship-calibre season.”
Bowman broke his vertebra after crashing in his team-mate Kyle Larson’s Excessive Restrict Dash Automotive Sequence in late April. The damage sidelined him for the following three races at Dover, Kansas, and Darlington, in addition to the All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro, for all of which Josh Berry stuffed in; Berry had additionally changed fellow Hendrick driver Chase Elliott for 5 races earlier within the season whereas Elliott was recovering from a broken leg. In aid responsibility for Bowman, Berry scored a greatest end of tenth at Dover whereas additionally profitable the All-Star Open.
He remained at North Wilkesboro to check the automobile on Tuesday, working 170 laps. Such exams, formally known as Medical Analysis Exams, are permitted to let drivers getting back from damage get re-acclimated to driving however have caveats to cut back potential competitors benefit reminiscent of prohibiting drivers from testing at a given observe if the sequence is scheduled to race there inside the subsequent sixty days.
On the time of his accident, Bowman was ninth in factors. Since then, he has dropped to seventeenth and 5 factors under the reduce line, although his standing can be impacted by a sixty-point penalty that he obtained earlier in April. NASCAR has granted Bowman a waiver to let him compete within the playoffs ought to he qualify by both profitable a race or being within the prime sixteen assuming there are fewer than sixteen race winners.
