Following Alex Bowman’s accident this week in a sprint car race that will take him out of the Cup Series for 3-4 weeks, Hendrick Motorsports president and general manger Jeff Andrews was asked Saturday if any changes would be coming to what outside activities the team’s drivers would be allowed to do —
JEFF, OBVIOUSLY THE SECOND TIME YOU‘VE HAD A DRIVER INJURED THIS SEASON. I KNOW YOU SAID AT LAS VEGAS THAT DRIVERS NEED TO LIVE THEIR LIVES. BUT IS THE MOMENT WHERE THE TEAM NEEDS TO TAKE A DEEPER LOOK AT WHAT DRIVERS CAN AND CAN‘T DO?
JEFF ANDREWS: “I think from that aspect, we always discuss with them and have conversations. There‘s a process that we have in place when they do want to run racing events outside of the Cup Series. That‘s still in place, that was in place. For this race, we were very aware of Alex‘s schedule through the season for this sprint car. We look at Chase and Alex‘s situation as two different situations. This is the first extracurricular racing accident that we‘ve had that‘s taken one of our drivers out here for three weeks. Chase‘s situation was a snowboarding kind of recreational accident.
We‘re always looking at it. I think our message is — you know, be careful. It‘s difficult because that‘s something Alex has a passion for. Something that he‘s worked very hard to be better at and we feel like it helped him over here in the Cup Series this year. He‘s obviously having the best year of his career in the Cup Series. This is a temporary setback and we look for him to come back strong. We‘re always evaluating. We‘re always knowledgeable in the conversations with our drivers about what they‘re doing and where they‘re racing outside of the Cup Series. Obviously it‘s a topic of conversation for us. We‘ve had discussions with our guys about it since Alex‘s accident. We‘ll continue to have those talks and as a group, we‘ll make the best decisions.”
— Team Chevy —
