With his head spinning and stomach churning inside his No 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, Alex Bowman had a flash of serious doubt about his racing future.
Illness forced Bowman to abandon his NASCAR Cup Series ride after 70 of 95 laps March 1 at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, where Myatt Snider finished the race in relief.
"Yeah, obviously COTA wasn't a lot of fun for me," said Bowman, who was medically cleared this week to race in Sunday's Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway.
"Everything was fine until it wasn't, obviously, in the car; dizziness, throwing up on myself, spinning, kind of all of the things. It wasn't fun, and I was not pumped that I had to get out. Obviously, I've raced through a lot of injuries, but this was one where I was going to end up running into something or somebody, and the smart thing to do in that case was to get out."
At that moment, the thought occurred to Bowman that he might not ever get back in.
"I mean, honestly, yeah, when I got out at COTA, I was like, ‘This is probably it.' That was what was going through my head. So, yeah, that sucked, and I'm thankful that I got another shot at it."
After the COTA race, Bowman was diagnosed with vertigo, and he missed the next four Cup Series events during his recovery. His return comes at a track billed as the "World's Fastest Half Mile," where G-forces over the course of 500 laps can exact a cumulative physical toll.
So why did Bowman choose this particular race for his comeback?
"Because they said I could," he said with a laugh. "I'm a race car driver, so you tell me I'm clear and I'm going to go do it. Yeah, it's probably the worst place possible to come back to, I think, not just from it's physical, but it's a track that is extremely difficult. The margins from the front to the back of the field are tiny."
Fresh from victory in Friday night's NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway, Christopher Bell turned serious–and honest–when asked about the current state of his NASCAR Cup Series program at Joe Gibbs Racing.
"We are missing something," acknowledged the driver of the No 20 Cup Series Toyota.
It's not that Bell is having a brutal season. He's seventh in the Cup standings, with three top fives and four top10's in seven races. Bell's 225 laps led are second most in the series behind teammate Denny Hamlin's 440.
Nevertheless, Bell conveyed disappointment at his failure to win a race so far this season.
"We have the same group, same people, same process and same equipment that we did when we won three races in a row last year," Bell said. "We have all the resources. We're just kind of swimming up creek a little bit."