There are NASCAR drivers battling rivals, tire wear, fuel strategy and the occasional concrete wall.
And then there’s Alex Bowman, currently locked in a far more unusual fight — with his own inner ear.
Hendrick Motorsports confirmed Tuesday that Bowman will miss at least the next three races of the NASCAR Cup Series season as he continues recovering from vertigo, extending what has already become one of the strangest early-season storylines in the garage.
Bowman has now been sidelined for two straight events after climbing from the No. 48 Chevrolet during the March 1 race at Circuit of The Americas. What followed has looked less like a race schedule and more like a substitute teacher rotation chart.
Myatt Snider was first called into action in Texas, followed by simulation driver Anthony Alfredo at Phoenix Raceway and veteran understudy Justin Allgaier at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
The results were, shall we say, character-building. Alfredo was running well before getting swept up in late-race chaos and finishing 33rd, while Allgaier brought the car home 25th in a race that felt about as forgiving as a parking meter with a grudge.
Now Allgaier will keep the seat warm again at Darlington Raceway this weekend, and in the following weeks at Martinsville Speedway and Bristol Motor Speedway — three tracks that require not only bravery and finesse, but ideally a driver who isn’t worried the world might start tilting mid-corner.
“Alex continues to experience symptoms, so we are following the guidance of the medical team and giving him the time he needs to recover,” Hendrick Motorsports president Jeff Andrews said. “We see how hard he’s working to get back behind the wheel, and we’re looking forward to his return when he’s medically cleared. Everyone at Hendrick Motorsports is 100% behind Alex.”
Which is corporate-speak for: please get better soon because this season isn’t slowing down for anyone.
Bowman currently sits 36th in the standings, already hundreds of points behind leader Tyler Reddick and well outside the top-16 cutoff for NASCAR’s returning postseason format. Drivers like Shane van Gisbergen, Daniel Suárez and AJ Allmendinger are hovering around that bubble line — a reminder that the margin between playoff relevance and irrelevance in modern NASCAR can be thinner than a pit crew’s patience.
All of this comes just one year after Bowman reached the postseason and finished 13th in the final standings, a respectable campaign that suggested stability might finally be on the horizon. Instead, 2026 has begun with crashes, missed races and now a medical timeout that threatens to turn the No. 48 season into a long exercise in damage limitation.
For Bowman, this is becoming an uncomfortable pattern. Concussions, fractured vertebrae and now vertigo have interrupted recent seasons with alarming regularity. The Arizona native still owns eight career Cup wins and a best championship finish of sixth in 2020, but NASCAR has never been particularly sentimental about past accomplishments.
Even his part-time plans outside the Cup Series have been derailed. Bowman was slated to drive the No. 88 Chevrolet for JR Motorsports in Saturday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race at Darlington, only for teammate Kyle Larson to step in instead — fresh off winning in the same car the previous weekend.
Meanwhile, Allgaier prepares for what will be his 86th career Cup start in Sunday’s Goodyear 400, once again playing the role of Hendrick’s most dependable stand-in.
Because in NASCAR, the show never stops.
Even if the room feels like it’s still spinning.
Greg was a writer for DriveTribe supporting Amazon's The Grand Tour and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, and a Masters degree in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek and a regular contributor to Forbes.