Crew chief Blake Harris’s first season with Hendrick Motorsports was disrupted by Alex Bowman sustaining an injury that knocked him out of the No. 48 for three races and contributed to Bowman missing the playoffs for the first time in six seasons with Hendrick Motorsports.
Undeterred, Harris presses on toward the 2024 season ready to deliver after going through a year he never would have scripted.
“This sport is very humbling,” Harris told NBC Sports after his first season with Hendrick. “The second you think you’ve got it figured out — you can go out and dominate and have a killer run and be the fastest car out there — and the next week, you completely get it handed to you.”
Bowman and Harris started their first season together with some success. They won the pole for the Daytona 500 and finished fifth in the race. They went on to post top-10 finishes in six of the first seven races. They also took the points lead before the spring race at Richmond.
“Everybody at HMS worked really hard through the winter and we were able to hit the ground running,” Harris said. “And really that just started with Daytona.”
The situation changed after the Talladega spring race. Bowman suffered a fractured vertebra in a sprint car crash that took him out of the No. 48 for four weeks. He returned for the Coca-Cola 600 on May 29.
Once Bowman returned from the injury, the No. 48 team went through a stretch where it struggled to contend. Bowman only had four top-10 finishes in the final 23 races of the season. He only reached the second round of qualifying once as his average starting position fell to 17.2, 3.2 spots lower than in 2022.
Qualifying was just the start of the weekend struggles. They continued into the races as Bowman failed to contend for stage points and wins.
“We did not qualify well this year,” Harris said. “Certainly, from the summer on, we seemed to struggle with getting a good lap down and that just was our weekend. A lot of times it was tough to pass. Even when we could pass, it might be late in runs when other guys’ stuff kind of faded and we would be coming on.
“… We went the first, I think, seven or eight races before he was out and I think we only had (five) stages that we didn’t score stage points. And then he comes back, and we don’t qualify as well as we’d like. We weren’t performing the best that we could and we really struggled to get stage points period.”
Bowman bluntly agreed with this assessment during a postseason appearance on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. He said that the team got its teeth “kicked in” during the second half of the Cup season.
These struggles kept Bowman and Harris out of the playoffs. They also provided a benefit — Bowman and Harris were able to build their relationship through better communication.
Harris admits it is easier for driver and crew chief to communicate when things are going well. They can celebrate big moments and focus on what they do well. They can spend free moments talking about topics outside of NASCAR that they find entertaining.
For Bowman and Harris, these conversations primarily focus on dirt racing or Bowman’s eclectic collection of cars.
When a team is struggling in all aspects of a race weekend, there must be difficult conversations. The crew chief and the driver have to look at every possible explanation for why the team isn’t qualifying or racing well. Personal feelings must be put aside so they can figure out the best steps toward improved performance.
The difficult conversations became a blessing for Bowman and Harris.
“When (Alex) came back and we got into some of the summer months, we were struggling,” Harris said. “There were several times I remember telling him, ‘Look, if the car’s bad, tell me that.’ Sometimes I don’t feel like I could get it out of him quick enough. (The car) might feel bad to him, but he might have been trying to sugarcoat it a little bit.
“I’m like, ‘Man, we don’t we don’t have to do that. You just tell me what it is.’ I do the same. I know he’s doing everything that he can on track and if there’s something I see that we can do a little bit differently to try to help the car, I try to feed him that information.”
The result of these conversations is that Harris and Bowman feel like they are in a very good place heading toward 2024. They have confidence in each other and in the No. 48 team’s ability to contend.
Despite the improved communication, it would have been easy enough for Hendrick Motorsports to make a change on the No. 48 team.
Hendrick Motorsports did not take this option as the No. 48 team went through a season of struggles. Owner Rick Hendrick and every other executive was vocal with support while trying to figure out how to help the team get back on track.
“Start with Mr. H from the top and (President and General Manager Jeff Andrews) and Chad (Knaus), all those guys,” Harris said. “I mean, (Jeff) Gordon every week. If we had a rough week, the first thing was, ‘man hang in there. You have situations that you’re having to overcome. This is certainly not how we would have scripted it.’
“They understand the hiccups that we had throughout the season and wanted to know what they can do to help us get stronger.”
