{"id":593000,"date":"2026-04-09T18:12:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T18:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/593000\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T18:12:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T18:12:08","slug":"alex-bowman-cleared-to-return-at-bristol-after-missing-4-races","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/593000\/","title":{"rendered":"Alex Bowman cleared to return at Bristol after missing 4 races"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>CHARLOTTE, N.C. &#8212; <a data-player-guid=\"544a7c92-2b32-ddf9-575b-47adcbeabefc\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/rpm\/driver?seriesId=2&amp;driverId=4555\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Alex Bowman<\/a> has been cleared to return to the NASCAR race weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway after missing four races with vertigo.<\/p>\n<p>Hendrick Motorsports announced Thursday that Bowman will drive the No. 48 Chevrolet on Sunday at the Tennessee track.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s been tough being out of the car, but we all wanted to make sure I was 100% ready before returning,&#8221; Bowman said. &#8220;I feel really good, and I&#8217;m excited about being at the track with my team and getting back to racing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Bowman had to exit his car during the March 1 race at Circuit of the Americas because of the symptoms of vertigo. He was replaced by <a data-player-guid=\"eab02559-efaf-64bd-a537-84de38026375\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/rpm\/driver?seriesId=2&amp;driverId=4769\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Myatt Snider<\/a> that day.<\/p>\n<p><a data-player-guid=\"d54570a1-cee1-811a-f0bb-513b37521e47\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/rpm\/driver?seriesId=2&amp;driverId=5588\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Anthony Alfredo<\/a> replaced Bowman at Phoenix, and <a data-player-guid=\"ec60d4c9-9827-0314-2ea6-3f717f86b17d\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/rpm\/driver?seriesId=2&amp;driverId=731\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Justin Allgaier<\/a> has driven the past three races for Bowman as he recovered.<\/p>\n<p>Hendrick Motorsports said Bowman was cleared to return after turning laps in a street car at a road course in North Carolina before practicing pit stops, racing in a simulator and passing a medical evaluation.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re proud of Alex and the way he&#8217;s handled this situation,&#8221; HMS president Jeff Andrews said. &#8220;He&#8217;s put a lot of work into his recovery and followed the medical team&#8217;s plan every step of the way. From the outset, our goal was to prioritize his health and have him return when he was fully recovered and medically cleared. We&#8217;re looking forward to seeing Alex back in his race car this weekend.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Bowman&#8217;s chances of making the playoffs are likely already over. Under the previous points system, Bowman could have had the chance to make the postseason by winning a regular-season race. NASCAR&#8217;s modified format for the 2026 season is no longer win-and-in and the top 16 drivers in the points standings make the playoffs.<\/p>\n<p>Bowman is 144 points back of 16th.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHARLOTTE, N.C. &#8212; Alex Bowman has been cleared to return to the NASCAR race weekend at Bristol Motor&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":593001,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":["post-593000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=593000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593000\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/593001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}