Livid Fans Point Fingers at Rick Hendrick as HMS Star Suffers His Worst “Nightmare”

“Team is solid, Blake’s doing a great job,” Jeff Gordon said in a recent interview. The Hendrick Motorsports vice chairman exuded confidence about the No. 48 Chevrolet team and its crew chief, Blake Harris. However, who knew that this dash of optimism would fizzle out for Alex Bowman at Darlington Raceway?

The egg-shaped oval has already been a fairly tough racetrack for Alex Bowman. He owns just two top tens in Darlington since 2022, and his average finish of 19.8 is 24th in career races. But a glaring mistake on pit road made things astonishingly worse for Rick Hendrick’s driver.

Pit woes engulf Alex Bowman

The 2025 season has not been so fortunate for the No. 48 driver. Alex Bowman has searched for an elusive victory, picking up 14 top tens and 6 top fives. This regular-season run ended on a risky note at Daytona, where an early crash almost toppled Bowman out of the playoffs. Then, Ryan Blaney became a repeat winner, and that saved Bowman. The latter thanked Blaney: “Seven million beers!” However, that beer toast will have to wait a while. Bowman’s sense of security did not continue in Darlington.

Alex Bowman started in 29th place, and by lap 34 of the Cook Out Southern 500, reported a very tight race car. On the first few pit stops, he pitted ahead of the leaders and gained a few track positions. By lap 55, he was up to 25th place. However, an unexpected disaster dawned on him on lap 70. He pitted earliest again, but an air gun malfunctioned during the pit stop. As the crew struggled to get a new one there, it turned into a 40-second stop, and he was back to 36th. NASCAR posted the video of the mishap on X and wrote, “Things go from bad to worse for @Alex_Bowman. Following this extended stop, the No. 48 is 36th, two laps down.”

This incident did not paint a good picture for Alex Bowman’s playoff picture. The Athletic reporter Jeff Gluck wrote about how Bowman took a nosedive after a fairly good run in the regular season. Gluck wrote, “Until Daytona, Alex Bowman finished 11th or better in eight out of 10 races. He’d been really solid despite being on the playoff bubble. Now he runs P36, two laps down. — Bad qualifying — Caught a piece of Lap 1 incident and had to pit — Horrible pit stop on third stop.”

Bozi Tatarevic, NASCAR expert and veteran pit crew member, severely criticized Rick Hendrick’s No. 48 crew members. He wrote, “What a disastrous pit stop for Bowman. Unless I missed some new rule, I don’t understand why someone at this level of the game would leave a spare wheel gun unplugged and untested.”

What is more, this stop elicited crestfallen responses from the NASCAR community.

NASCAR fans point fingers at the team

Mostly, people noted the No. 48 team’s lack of movement to fix the issue fast. They connected this to the age-old narrative of Alex Bowman being an outcast at Hendrick Motorsports. In 2024, rumors of Bowman being on the hot seat had been rampant – and now, fans found evidence for it. “They don’t care about Bowman and now its clearly obvious,” somebody wrote. Another fan pointed fingers at the crew chief, Blake Harris. He has been working with Bowman for three years now, exactly aligning with the stretch of Bowman’s lackluster finishes. So the fan wrote, “It’s all Alan Guf…. Sorry force of habit… Dammit Blake Harris!”

NASCAR expert Eric Estepp expressed his disappointment on X. He noted how the team made a total mess on pit road, as a 40-second pit stop is way longer than normal. “Holy moly everything that could go wrong DID go wrong. 40 second green flag pit stop for Alex Bowman. Brutal.” One fan also noted the complete sense of confusion in the No. 48 team, which was visibly disoriented during the stop. They wrote, “Tire carrier also had the wedge wrench looking to make an adjustment and never did. Full panic from the crew.”

Another fan demanded a constructive solution to the problem. They called for a shift in crew chiefs for Alex Bowman’s sake, and for Rick Hendrick to determine whose fault it truly is. “I would love to see Bowman with Daniels or Fugle (and crews). I just wanna see what happens. Put Harris (and crew) with Larson or Byron. Let’s truly find out if it’s a driver problem or a CC/crew problem.”

Evidently, the first playoff race at Darlington Raceway just went south for Alex Bowman. Let us see if the HMS driver can reverse his misfortune by the end of it.