(Photo: Riley Thompson | The Podium Finish)
2023 Daytona 500 champion Ricky Stenhouse Jr. is locked into the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs for the first time in seven seasons. But that isn’t going to affect how much dirt racing he does outside of NASCAR, he said.
“We just love racing,” Stenhouse said. “We feel like it brings more fans to short tracks all across the country … We wouldn’t be where we are today without it. It’s important in all aspects.”
The question of NASCAR drivers racing in extracurriculars comes after Alex Bowman, driver of the No. 48 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports, got injured while racing a sprint car. On April 25, Bowman suffered a compression fracture to his vertebra after flipping several times at 34 Raceway in West Burlington, Iowa, according to a team release. He’s expected to miss two to three more weeks.
Kyle Larson, Bowman’s teammate and the driver of the No. 5 car, owns the High Limits Sprint Car Series – the series that Bowman got injured racing in. While addressing the media Saturday at Dover Motor Speedway, Larson admitted it had been an emotional week dealing with the effects of Bowman’s injury. However, the 30-year-old from Elk Grove, California said that the circumstances won’t affect his involvement in racing on dirt.
“I don’t just do it for fun, I don’t just do it for training. I also make a lot of money racing,” Larson said. “People assume the odds are much higher getting hurt in a sprint car, but I would love to see that data that would prove that because I don’t view it that way … I’ve nearly honestly escaped death a couple of times in a stock car. All racing is dangerous.”
Larson is expected to compete in the 2024 and the 2025 Indianapolis 500 and that won’t change. He traveled to Indianapolis on Tuesday for a seat fitting, according to the Arrow McLaren Twitter page.
Christopher Bell, the driver of the No. 20 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing, is another Cup Series driver with a dirt racing background. Earlier in his NASCAR career, he moonlighted dirt events such as the Chili Bowl Midget Nationals, a marquee midget car race in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
But as of late, team owner Joe Gibbs has restricted Bell’s extracurricular racing activities. Bell declined to comment when asked about his dirt racing activities at Dover.
Chris Buescher, the driver of the No. 17 Ford for RFK Racing, said that he doesn’t participate in many extracurricular events but would like to race in more. However, he said that he weighs the extra injury risk as a factor in deciding.
Kyle Larson said that he will continue to race on dirt despite Alex Bowman’s injury. (Photo: Riley Thompson | The Podium Finish)
“I just kind of have a thought in the back of my head that worries me about exactly what just happened [to Bowman],” Buescher said. “If you get hurt and you can’t do what your main focus is – that worries me. That’s kept me from doing a whole lot outside of the Cup garage.”
Chase Elliott, the driver of the No. 9 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports, had a similar situation as his teammate earlier in the season. Elliott suffered a fractured tibia while snowboarding in Colorado and missed six races.
While the circumstances are different between the two injuries, Elliott said that drivers shouldn’t be restricted in what activities they participate in.
“It’s a bad look. I totally understand that. But also, I understand that there is a timing piece of that and it’s just really poor timing,” Elliott said. “I think if one [injury] happened this year and the other happened next year, would we be having the same conversation? Probably not.”
For now, Jeff Andrews, the president and general manager of Hendrick Motorsports, doesn’t expect an extracurricular policy change. He said that team owner Rick Hendrick echoes a simple message that he expects drivers to follow: “Be careful.”
“The message from Mr. Hendrick is that – I don’t want to stop those things, but be careful,” Andrews said. “Understand what the most important thing is and the most important thing for Hendrick Motorsports is the results here on Sunday. So we’ll always keep that at the top of the list. Again, we may take a look at this. If this happens again, we’ll have to. But for right now, there’s not going to be any chances to our policy.”
