Alex Bowman is looking to establish his own NASCAR legacy in the No. 48
Alex Bowman has experience taking over for NASCAR’s stars. He did it in the No. 88 Chevrolet, replacing Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the driver’s seat full-time in 2018. Next he’ll carry the torch for seven-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson piloting the No. 48 Chevy when Johnson exits the sport in 2021.
Bowman said Wednesday that he’s approaching the latest transition like he did the last one; He’ll just be himself.
“I didn’t try to be Dale,” Bowman, 27, said. “I didn’t want to be Dale, and the same with Jimmie. I don’t want to be Jimmie. I mean, I want to win seven championships and do all the great things that he did, but I’m my own person so I’m just going to approach it like another race car.”
Bowman, who described himself as “quiet and reserved,” said that he wants to let his on-track performance do the talking, but he’s looking forward to working with the car’s primary sponsor Ally Bank on creative marketing campaigns.
Wins and championships could come before Bowman makes the leap to the No. 48. The driver is still racing to retain his spot in the playoffs after winning at Auto Club Speedway in February to secure his spot in the postseason, and has advanced to the Round of 12 on points. Bowman sits 22 points above the eight-driver cutoff heading into Sunday’s elimination race at the Charlotte Roval, where he’s had two top-five finishes.
The Tuscon, Arizona native checked in with The Observer to discuss how he plans to approach a rainy road course this weekend, what the future of the No. 48 will look like with him behind the wheel and why he once nearly quit racing to go to college.
This interview has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
Alex Andrejev: This is my first Silly Season, so my first question is: Is it always like this?
Alex Bowman: It’s probably been busier than normal. I feel like it started earlier and is taking a majority of the season. I feel like during the COVID shutdown we were already talking about Silly Season and now we’ve got five races to go and there are still a lot of rides left open. It’s been an interesting Silly Season for sure.
AA: Even as late as a few weeks ago, you seemed surprised by a question about being considered as the next driver of the 48. How did these plans develop?
AB: As far as I knew, I was just driving the 88 car again and nothing was changing. I got a phone call from Mr. H to go to his house and have a meeting and the first thing he says is, ‘You’re driving the 48 next year.’ So it was definitely interesting from my end. I didn’t really expect it, so it means a lot to me that he and Ally have faith in me to drive that car and try to continue that legacy. Ally’s been really cool to work with so far and getting to know everybody has been really cool. I feel like they had a long, drawn-out process, but it was pretty short for me. Just a conversation and found out that’s what I was doing next year.
AA: How much of a change does this realistically feel like? You’re switching car numbers, but not organizations or crew chiefs or core teammates.
AB: I think the on-track stuff is going to be business as usual. Same group of guys. Same crew chief. Same spotter, so as far as showing up to the racetrack and doing our job, that’s really gonna stay the same and hopefully we just continue to improve and grow the race team. The off-track stuff is obviously gonna be different working with Ally. I’m really looking forward to that. To have the same partner the entire year for every race is really cool. It’s something I haven’t ever had before, so I’m looking forward to that and the way they disrupt and do things differently. The way they do their branding and marketing is cool, so I’m excited to be a part of that. I think it’s going to be fun.
AA: Could this be the start of a long-term, Jimmie Johnson-esque type of relationship with this team and sponsor?
AB: I think the goal is always to build a really long-lasting relationship and have something like that. Ally’s commitment is pretty big. They’re signed on for the next couple of years (through 2023). And my contract is just for next year. I feel like drivers these days are really only getting one-year contracts just because of the way the world is right now and everything going on, but I think the goal is obviously to grow that into a long-term relationship for sure.
AA: You mentioned the marketing element working with Ally. Is branding and personal promotion something you’re going to emphasize more?
AB: Yes and no. All I can do is be myself. I can’t really fake things, but Ally does a ton socially and I think we have some plans to do some really cool things together so I’m looking forward to that, but it’s all going to be really authentic, fun stuff. It’s not going to be just doing something to do it. They’re all going to be really authentic and meaningful, so looking forward to that. I feel like Ally does a really good job of that and they’re really open to getting a little bit of direction from me. You look at the things they do with Jimmie and they’re all really authentic to Jimmie, so I’m looking forward to doing things that are authentic to me and having fun doing it.
AA: So are your dogs going to be featured more in your social media posts?
AB: I hope so. I’m all in for that. Yeah, between dogs and car stuff, automotive stuff, obviously Ally is an online bank but does auto financing, too, so to have that relationship, we can do a lot with cars and that’ll be really cool.
AA: During a call earlier you said that there was a time when you almost stepped away from racing and considered going to college. Why was that?
AB: 2014 and 2015, really ‘13, ‘14 and ‘15 were all pretty rough and I just kinda got beat down and wasn’t having fun and things just weren’t working out. When your career’s not working out and things are tough, it kinda made sense to think about school and trying to find something different to do and I was pretty close to doing that, so I’m definitely thankful I stuck with it and things worked out the way they did, but there were definitely some tough times before things got better.
AA: What was the saving grace that kept you racing?
AB: The big saving grace was getting hired by HMS to go drive the simulator at the beginning of 2016, which really stemmed from my previous ride right before Daytona and having a bunch of free time. They needed somebody to go drive the simulator while everybody else was in Daytona, so while it definitely sucked to have that situation start, everything happens for a reason and obviously it worked out pretty well.
AA: Really? The simulator kept you racing? How much do you still use the simulator? And what about iRacing? I feel like you weren’t a big iRacing guy.
AB: I’m definitely not a big iRacing guy, but that’s just because I’m terrible at it, so I like to make fun of it as much as I can. But obviously the simulator is quite a bit different and it’s something we can actually use to develop our race cars. It’s not much fun by any means. It’s work when you go in there and can be really frustrating at times, but you have to be willing to turn over every rock and do each and everything you can to try to improve your cars and race team, so we use it as much as they’ll let us and there are definitely noticeable gains from using it.
AA: I’m assuming during the pandemic that teams are putting more emphasis on sim time. Is that true?
AB: Yeah, definitely. NASCAR kind of shut us down for a while. We weren’t allowed to use the manufacturer simulators during the pandemic, so being limited in that was interesting. I think if NASCAR wouldn’t have done that, we would have been in there pretty much everyday but there were a couple months there where we weren’t allowed in it and had to live without it, but now that the season’s back on, we’re in it every week. I know William (Byron) has been using it a lot. The thing about the Chevy simulator is you almost fight for time with it with everybody wanting to use it, different race teams wanting to use it. We use it as much as they will let us and that’s quite a bit right now.
AA: How are you preparing for the road course at Charlotte this weekend? You have two top-fives there, so you’re doing something right.
AB: It’s hard to prepare in 2020 for any race just because there’s no practice, no qualifying. The Chevy simulator does a really good job on the road courses of acting like a real race car, so we’ve definitely been in there for that probably the last two weeks working on the Roval specifically. It’s tough because you’re running through a lot of changes and trying to improve the race car and some of (the changes) you can feel in the sim, and some of them you can’t. I think we’ve done a good job of finding a good balance of where we need to start that race. The rain is like...I don’t know what to expect. I’ve never raced in the rain. I’m not a road course racer, so I don’t have all the rain knowledge. Just trying to lean on other people to talk about what rain racing is like and hopefully be as prepared for it as I can be if that does happen.
AA: Have you been talking to Jimmie more after the announcement or has that relationship changed?
AB: I don’t think that relationship has changed by any means. Jimmie is a great teammate and an open book all the time so I talk to him quite a bit. We haven’t talked specifically about the Roval very much, but pre-race, we all have our own different ways of prepping, and I think a lot what we do for the Roval stems from what we did for the Daytona road course preparation, and that was working Jordan Taylor, who’s done a ton of rain racing and road course racing, so trying to apply those same things that he applied to that race track to the Roval and just trying to figure it out.
AA: Final question: If you had gone back to school, what would you have majored in?
AB: That’s a tough question. I don’t have a clue. There was a time that I really wanted to go into video production. Me and some of my friends that was kind of a hobby of ours, but I’m pretty terrible at it, so it’s a good thing that didn’t happen. But honestly if I wasn’t racing, it would be something in the automotive world. I’m definitely really into cars. Whether it would have been going back home and working for my dad or trying to somehow start my own shop. Something in the automotive industry for sure.
This story was originally published October 10, 2020 at 9:36 AM with the headline "Alex Bowman is looking to establish his own NASCAR legacy in the No. 48."
