This season, Hendrick Motorsports found themselves in a peculiar situation. Two of their drivers, Alex Bowman and Chase Elliott, were sidelined, both at different times, but both with more or less the same reason. They got injured in extra-curricular activities, or activities outside their day job in NASCAR, but activities, that ended up affecting their day jobs in NASCAR.
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One could argue against it and perhaps make a sound argument too, but it cannot be fully ignored that Bowman and Elliott being out for the times they were out did have an impact on the fact that they missed the playoffs. So how does HMS react to it? Do they ban their drivers from not focusing on anything except NASCAR?
The short answer is no.
HMS not banning its drivers, but want them to be more responsible
During an interview from last week, Jeff Gordon claimed that drivers need to have a “certain degree of responsibility” over their choices and decisions. However, that doesn’t mean that they cannot have a home life or friends or activities that contribute to that.
He elaborated, “I don’t have a problem with the things they do. Just be smart about it and make wise choices as he does it. When I picked Chase’s brain about what happened, I don’t think he could have done anything different. Is he going to make different choices now that he’s been out of the car and seen how it impacted his season?”
“Maybe, and that’s on him.”
What’s on Chase Elliott’s mind is something only he knows for the most part. But what’s on Alex Bowman’s mind regarding his stance on the subject was something he revealed recently.
Alex Bowman had his moment of introspection after he broke his back in Iowa
After he broke his T3 vertebrae during a High Limit race earlier in June, Bowman was sidelined for three weeks from NASCAR. But it wasn’t those three weeks, but that night in a hospital in Iowa, that made him do some introspection.
“Laying in a hospital bed at midnight in the middle of Iowa on your birthday and being unable to find a doctor that can immediately read your X-ray gives you a little bit of perspective,” Bowman said as per Sportsnaut. “You start to evaluate if the things you’re spending your own money on are worth it or not.”
In fact, Bowman admitted he still hasn’t fully recovered from the injury, pointing to the effects racing on road courses still takes on his body. But with that said, Bowman claimed he will get back to that but not at the cost of taking himself out of “one of those things.”
