CHARLOTTE — Alex Bowman said he’s heard the rumor that he could be out of the No. 48 car after this season if he doesn’t advance beyond the first round of the playoffs.
“It got to a point where I picked up the phone and called everybody,” Bowman said Wednesday in response to a question from NBC Sports at NASCAR Cup playoff media day.
“Everybody said ‘Absolutely not.’ So that’s really all I have to go on. I don’t have a reason to believe anything other than that. There’s no ‘Oh, you need to do this to keep your job. It’s absolutely not (the case). Everything is fine.’
“Beyond that, we need to go run better. It’s been a miserable month. We haven’t executed on a high level at all. So we need to go run better the next 10 weeks. But we need to do that for us and our playoff run and for (sponsor) Ally and the 48 car. There’s no like ‘You need to do this to keep your job,’ as far as I know. I’m not worried about that at all.”
Bowman, whose contract goes through 2026, earned a playoff spot by winning the Chicago Street Race in July. He followed that win with a third-place finish at Pocono but hasn’t finished better than 16th in the five races since.
Rumors about Bowman’s future are reoccurring. Jeff Gordon, vice chairman of Hendrick Motorsports, defended Bowman after Bowman won at Chicago.
“As far as we’re concerned, Ally loves him and we love him,” Gordon said in July. “He’s a car guy, and there’s a reason why he came to Hendrick Motorsports, and he’s proven he can win. Today was not an easy set of circumstances, and he proved he can win in these tough conditions, as well, on a road course.
“I understand why people want to talk and — it’s a tough business. When you’re at Hendrick Motorsports, you do expect, especially when the other three have won, to be in that same category, and it hasn’t been happening. Hopefully this dispels a lot of the rumors.”
Bowman, who is in the playoffs for the sixth time, is seeded 12th — the final transfer spot to the next round. With the points tight, he enters Sunday’s playoff opener at Atlanta Motor Speedway (3 p.m. ET on USA Network) 10 points from sixth place in the standings.
“We just need to execute at a high level the next 10 weeks and just need to buy in and have the whole team lock in and execute well,” said Bowman, who has eight career wins in seven full seasons with Hendrick Motorsports.
His best stretch of this season came when he scored five consecutive top 10s in April and May, finishing fifth at Talladega, eighth at Dover, seventh at Kansas, eighth at Darlington and ninth in the Coca-Cola 600. He’s had three top 10s, including the Chicago win, in the 12 races since.
“Certainly working super hard and kind of trying to do everything that I possibly can,” Bowman said. “But I feel like sometimes you do that and almost get worse. Just got to go do my thing and go from there.”