NASCAR: Notable omission from Hendrick Motorsports’ 2021 lineup

By Asher Fair | Oct 2, 2020

Alex Bowman, Hendrick Motorsports, Auto Club Speedway, NASCAR (Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images) /

Alex Bowman signed a contract extension with Hendrick Motorsports back in May. But one omission from it has led to a further question about the team’s 2021 NASCAR Cup Series driver lineup.

Over four and a half months ago, Alex Bowman signed a one-year contract extension with Hendrick Motorsports to continue driving for the team through the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series season, but there was one notable omission from this announcement that has led to a further question about Hendrick Motorsports’ 2021 lineup.

Of course, we know that Jimmie Johnson is set to retire from full-time competition after the 2020 season, which frees up the #48 Chevrolet, and we know that Chase Elliott and William Byron are already under contract for next year and beyond.

But even among the three drivers under contract for next year, there is still one big piece missing.

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As the driver who was widely considered the top remaining free agent in a stacked free agent class, Bowman unsurprisingly extended his deal with the team back on Saturday, May 16, one day before the series returned following a 10-week hiatus caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Bowman, who dominated the race at Auto Club Speedway earlier this year for his second career win, has driven the #88 Chevrolet for Rick Hendrick’s team since replacing Dale Earnhardt Jr. after the 2017 season. He was also one of the replacement drivers for the injured Earnhardt during the second half of the 2016 season, and he nearly won a race at Phoenix Raceway as his replacement.

What had been the root of the speculation regarding Bowman’s status as a free agent was not his performance during his first two-plus seasons at Hendrick Motorsports; he qualified for the round of 12 of the playoffs in each of his first two seasons with the team, and his start to the 2020 season placed him on the radar of many fans as a potential dark horse Championship 4 candidate.

What had been the subject of this speculation was a lack of long-term sponsorship, specifically after losing Nationwide as a primary sponsor after last year. The #88 Chevrolet does have some sponsorship deals lined up for next year, but it was believed that additional funding would have to come from somewhere for Bowman to return.

They got that sponsorship for this year with 26 races from Chevrolet Accessories (Adam’s Polishes, NOCO and Truck Hero). But 2021 remains a big unknown.

That’s what leads us to the key omission from the confirmation of Bowman’s recent extension, and thus Hendrick Motorsports’ 2021 lineup.

Nowhere in this confirmation is there any sort of specific confirmation that he will be back behind the wheel of the #88 Chevrolet, and even in the more than three months which have passed since the confirmation, there has been nothing said about the matter.

Bowman did reference the #88 in his Twitter post about the extension (and, of course, his Twitter handle is @AlexBowman88) but the release simply states that he currently drives the #88 Chevrolet. That is the only reference to it.

Could the 27-year-old Tucson, Arizona native end up moving to the #48 Chevrolet to replace the retiring Johnson, and could Johnson’s replacement effectively end up driving the #88 Chevrolet?

This may actually be the scenario that makes the most sense from a sponsorship standpoint.

After Johnson announced last November that the 2020 season would be his last, NASCAR.com discussed the possibility of his replacement actually driving the #24 Chevrolet, with Byron moving from the #24 team to the #48 team to effectively replace Johnson from within.

The #48 team is already fully funded for the foreseeable future, as Ally Financial signed an extension that runs through the 2023 season to serve as the car’s full-time primary sponsor even before Johnson announced his impending retirement.

Unlike Bowman, however, Byron, who is under contract through 2022, already has several primary sponsorship deals lined up for the majority of next season. Axalta is signed to sponsor him for 14 races, Liberty University, his school, is signed to sponsor him for 12.

But with Bowman having now signed a contract extension with Hendrick Motorsports (a) for only one year, (b) without confirmation of new sponsors and (c) without confirmation that he is still going to drive the #88 Chevrolet, don’t rule out him donning Ally colors next year — if, of course, he doesn’t end up coming up with additional sponsorship deals for 2021 in the meantime.

After all, it doesn’t appear that there is any rush to complete the team’s driver lineup quite yet, as it is now early October and we still don’t know Johnson’s replacement.

Naturally, the #48 team being fully funded would make it much easier for Hendrick Motorsports to pick whomever they want to replace Johnson. And that is likely what will happen if Bowman can find additional sponsors of his own for the #88 team.

But if not, long-term stability is still key, even with Bowman now officially tied to the team through next year. Why not put an already familiar face in the car that has been tied to one and only one Hendrick driver for two decades — and with an already familiar full-time sponsor?

As far as actual replacement candidates for Johnson are concerned, this would require whomever replaces him to bring significant funding.

Perhaps Bowman’s current sponsors, Valvoline, Llumar and Cincinnati, could move to the #24 Chevrolet for the races in which Byron doesn’t have sponsors yet next year, especially since Hertz terminated their sponsorship agreement with the team after filing for bankruptcy.

Chevrolet Accessories could also potentially step in and sponsor several races for Byron or for the new driver, and Acronis recently signed a multi-year contract with the team as a major associate partner as well.

Additionally, Hendrick Motorsports doing a number swap is not unheard of. It happened just two years ago when Byron replaced Kasey Kahne behind the wheel of the #5 Chevrolet, but the #5 Chevrolet became the #24 Chevrolet when Elliott moved from the #24 Chevrolet to the new #9 Chevrolet.

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Of course, at the end of the day, Alex Bowman is set to be back for a fifth year and fourth full year with Hendrick Motorsports in the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series season, and that is what matters most, irrespective of what car he drives.

But the lack of confirmation that he will, in fact, be behind the wheel of the #88 Chevrolet could indicate, albeit not confirm, that another swap within the team is a possibility, and it could turn out to be pretty significant in terms of the sponsorship implications of who the team hire as their fourth driver next year, if anybody.

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