Hendrick Motorsports Superstar Starts the Season With a Bang After a Dismal 2023 Season

Hendrick Motorsports stole the spotlight at the Daytona 500 race. William Byron has brought the team its 302nd Cup win and 9th Harley J. Earl trophy 40 years after its inception. Daytona’s runner-up is also a Hendrick fella- Alex Bowman, who thundered into the 2024 season after a bland run last year.

Bowman suffered a series of misfortunes last year. His Hendrick teammate Chase Elliott scripted a similar story. To give you a perspective, the other half of Hendrick Motorsports, Kyle Larson and William Byron, finished third and fourth in the Championship race in November 2023. But, Elliott and Bowman fought for 16th and 17th places. Fortunately, the sweet start to 2024 hints at way better prospects for the Hendrick team.

Alex Bowman racing for the top finishes in 2024

Alex Bowman had his 2023 season handicapped after fracturing a vertebra in a sprint car accident in April. Until then, he was going strong with high hopes for his team. Bowman notched three top-five finishes and six top-10s and was leading the point standings for a stretch before the mishap.

However, even with his crew chief Blake Harris, Bowman’s rank slid downward for the rest of the year. In the final 23 races of 2023, he finished inside the top 20 a total of 13 times. He admitted that there was “definitely a little bit of pain still” after his mid-spring injuries.

Chase Elliott faced a similar situation. Last year he suffered a snowboarding accident in March that kept him out of six races. He also missed a seventh race in June after a NASCAR-issued suspension. However, every setback is bound to teach you a greater lesson.

Bowman changed his mindset and approach to how to tackle problems. “I think some of it is being able to just push the reset button, right, and just kind of start over.”

The reset button seems to be already yielding good results. NASCAR journalist recently tweeted: “The runner-up finish for @Alex_Bowman snapped a 12-race skid of finishing outside the top five.”

While Bowman found his way back to the top after an ugly campaign, Hendrick experienced a lot of the Daytona 500 wrecks first-hand, sometimes causing them.

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Bowman triggered a domino crash, which he himself left unscathed

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Both William Byron and Alex Bowman happened to be at the helm of a major wreck at Daytona. Either it was their master plan [probably not] or lady luck just leaned in too much on their side that day. Bowman was bump-drafting Byron on the backstretch when the latter lost control and hit Brad Keselowski. That sparked off a crash entangling over 20 cars involving six former NASCAR champions.

“I was lifting to try to get off him once he was aimed the wrong place. But we’re all just shoving each other. That’s what speedway racing has kind of become. If it was my fault, I didn’t mean to crash anybody by any means,” Bowman said.

But we all saw that both Byron and Bowman were the biggest beneficiaries of the wreck. They gave Hendrick a 1-2 finish at the Great American Race. If this season’s races continue to be such wreck fests, we’ll soon find out if it was luck or driving prowess that had the HMS driver’s back. 

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