Alex Bowman, the Hendrick Motorsports driver, recently clarified on his outburst over the radio, accusing Richard Childress Racing of race manipulation. He said that it was said out of frustration and not a direct accusation.
Alex Bowman, after a blistering moment at Richmond Raceway in the course of the Cook Out 400 race, accused Richard Childress Racing (RCR) of race manipulation. In particular, Bowman was agitated because he was held up by Jesse Love, an RCR driver who was lapping down, which impeded his efforts to close the gap on Austin Dillon, another RCR driver leading the race. Bowman founded his criticism on the radio, where he claimed it was race manipulation. Bowman later explained that this was mostly frustration-induced, as he was behind even before the race, which is why he lost his cool and yelled the words.
He even recognised that the likely way drivers used the radio to release emotions was through some form of venting, which was not specifically viewed as a calculated action of making an accusation. Bowman admitted that he had to do better and cited the difficulties presented by intense traffic and tire wear in the latter stages of the race, which affected his possibilities of overtaking Dillon.
To the Kenny Wallace Show, he said:
“I don’t think you can really hold everything a race car driver says inside the race car against them because I was just frustrated, right? Like obviously we work closely with those guys and work together throughout the week with all the Chevy teams and yeah, I mean I think what happened with a different lap car about 15 laps before that just had me so frustrated. But yeah, that’s just, that’s racing, that’s part of the game and that’s what we’re here for.”
Daytona should be crazy
Regular season finale
Teammates helping each other
Manufacturers helping each other
Alex Bowman needs to get in
Kyle Busch needs to win to get in@StephOtey on the scene! pic.twitter.com/xvyOyAyadW
— The Kenny Wallace Show (@KWallaceShow) August 23, 2025
In more than 25 races, Bowman has achieved an average of 15.6th and has acquired six top-5 and 14 top-10 finishes, proving that he is fairly competitive. He also has scored twice on pole and led 160 laps total. Significantly, Bowman has not faced any outliers on overall completion, completing 91.75 per cent of all laps in the races in which he has competed in, and three DNFs (Did Not Finish) thus far.
Alex Bowman eyes a breakthrough victory as he remains the lone winless Hendrick Motorsports driver this season
Alex Bowman remains the only Hendrick Motorsports driver without a win in the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season. Despite multiple close calls, including a runner-up finish at Homestead-Miami Speedway and strong podiums at Atlanta, Dover, and Richmond, Bowman has yet to clinch victory. He expressed frustration that, despite having competitive cars capable of winning at tracks like Texas and Kansas, circumstances such as crashes and damage out of his control have kept the win elusive so far this season. Bowman is eager to break through and secure that long-awaited victory. He said:
“Yeah, I feel like we should have won by now, and we’ve been close. Homestead, we were close. Richmond, we were close. I think we had a car very capable of winning Texas if we didn’t crash, which was totally out of our control. Kansas, we were capable of winning before we got damaged. So, we’ve had plenty of races that we’ve had winning cars. But unfortunately, it hasn’t worked out for us this season. We haven’t had that perfect day yet.” (Racer.com)
The Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona represents a prime opportunity for Bowman to finally get to victory lane and join his Hendrick teammates in winning this season.
