Tucson native Alex Bowman started last weekend’s Daytona 500 in the front row, and was in good shape before getting caught up in a crash and finishing in 24th place. But any immediate disappointment Bowman felt about his finish Monday night was shelved when he found out that fellow driver Ryan Newman had been taken to the hospital following a horrific crash in the race’s closing laps.
“That was a worst-case scenario impact,” he said. “So if anybody can survive that, it’d definitely be him.”
Newman did just that, walking out of the hospital on Wednesday.
Bowman, along with many of the drivers who just ran Daytona, is in Las Vegas this weekend for the Pennzoil 400.
The 24-year-old is in his third full season with Hendrick Motorsports after replacing the retired Dale Earnhardt Jr. after the 2017 season. He earned his first career NASCAR Cup Series victory last year at Chicagoland Speedway.
The Ironwood Ridge High School graduate talked to the Star Friday about his thoughts going into the season, his home track in Phoenix and some childhood and hometown memories.
Obviously the big news coming out of last weekend’s Daytona 500 was the crash. Now that Newman is home recovering and you’ve had a few days to sit with what happened, how are you feeling?
A: “I’m obviously really, really glad that Ryan’s OK. We didn’t really know there for quite awhile. That was the worst hit I’ve seen in a long time, really ever. … I’m appreciative of everything NASCAR does to make the cars safer; they work really hard on that. Obviously Ryan’s pretty vocal on the safety side of things, so I’m glad he was in that car safely and everything worked out.”
Crash aside, what was your experience at this year’s Daytona like, and how do you feel about your performance?
A: “It was a decent day for us, we had a really good car. The Daytona 500 is always such a cool event to be a part of. We were in up front, and just got wiped out there towards the end, got caught up in somebody else’s mess and ended up 24th. I’m bummed about our finish, but on to the next one.”
Are there any takeaways from last weekend’s race that you’ll apply to the rest of the season?
A: “Daytona is not really the greatest benchmark of how your entire season is going to go, because being a super speedway race it’s so different than anything else we do. We’re going to Las Vegas this weekend, we practice (Friday) and that’s really the first time that we’ll know what we have. We have a new race car this year, with the (Chevrolet) Camaro ZL1 1LE, and I think that should be really good for us; we just don’t really know what it’s going to drive like until we practice (Friday). I’m looking forward to seeing how that goes, and evaluating how it is and how the balance is, and we were really strong here in the fall, so hopefully we can continue that.”
In November 2018, ISM Raceway unveiled its new look following $178 million in renovation. You’ve spent a lot of time at that track over the years: What do you think about its new look?
A: “The infield has changed a lot, the start/finish line moving around and the grandstand has changed a bunch. It’s different for sure, going there as a kid, the front straightaway being on the other side. From a fan standpoint, I think it’s awesome. Getting out of the sun and having so much more shade there for the fans is great. I remember being sunburned about every time I watched a race there as a kid. The restarts have gotten super exciting with where they moved the start/finish line to, and the in-field experience for the fans is really cool. They can get right up close and personal, and I think they really enjoy that.”
Tucson Speedway, formerly Tucson Raceway Park, will open its spring season in a few weeks. Did you race or have any experiences there as a kid?
A: “I only ran there a couple times, I think the last time was Ford Focus Midget. I was probably 13 or 14. I ran the dirt track in Tucson a few times in a midget, but I ran most of the places around here at some point. I went to TRP a lot as a kid just to watch, but I only raced there the one time I think. I remember watching all the winter heat races there and watching a lot of super late model stuff, so that was always a neat track.”
What’s your favorite memory from your childhood?
A: “I spent a lot of time traveling. I was from Tucson, went to Ironwood Ridge, but other than that I was traveling all the time to go racing. The racetracks that we had around the Southwest, there’s a lot of really underrated racetracks that we were able to go to and watch and when I started racing, just bounced around and started running at all the places in the immediate area. I feel like Arizona is not really a place that people think about as far as racing, but especially the dirt midgets and sprint car stuff, there were just a ton of racetracks that were all really cool. Manzanita was super famous and it was cool to run there before it got shut down.”
