Alex Bowman Is Retiring From Full-Time NASCAR After 2027. He Wants You to Know It's Not the Injuries.
The Hendrick Motorsports driver — three Daytona 500 poles, eight Cup wins, a broken vertebra and a bout of vertigo along the way — says the decision is about what's next, not what's gone wrong.
Alex Bowman told Hendrick Motorsports this week that he's stepping away from full-time NASCAR Cup Series competition after the 2027 season — his tenth full year driving for the team. The announcement came Thursday, July 23, alongside a one-year contract extension covering that final full-time season. "I've spent a lot of time thinking about what's next, and this feels like the right decision at the right time," Bowman said. "The sport asks a lot of you, and I've learned it's important to listen to your body and make the right choices for yourself."
The numbers make a solid case for a driver who was never quite a superstar but was reliably good: eight Cup Series victories, seven poles — three of them for the Daytona 500, in 2018, 2021, and 2023 — 49 top-five finishes, 116 top-10s, and 1,530 laps led across 307 starts with Hendrick, plus seven playoff appearances. His most recent win came at the Chicago Street Course in July 2024.
Bowman's route to one of NASCAR's most prized rides wasn't a straight line. He spent 2014 and 2015 scraping by with underfunded teams BK Racing and Tommy Baldwin Racing, an era he's described candidly as "selling seats to manage through everyday life." His break came in 2016, filling in for an injured Dale Earnhardt Jr. for ten races and picking up his first career pole at Phoenix. Hendrick made it permanent on July 20, 2017, naming him full-time driver of the No. 88 for 2018 before he moved into the No. 48 — Jimmie Johnson's old number — when Johnson retired.
Bowman was careful to separate the decision from a rough run of injuries: concussion-like symptoms that sidelined him for five races in 2022, a fractured vertebra from a sprint car crash that cost him three more starts in 2023, and a bout of vertigo that has already kept him out of four races this season. He sits 29th in the standings with 292 points heading into the stretch run. Instead, he said he wants to leave "on a more positive note" than this year has been — and on his own terms, with a full season and a half still ahead of him to make that count.
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