Alex Bowman to miss Vegas Cup race due to vertigo

Alex Bowman will remain out for a second straight week as the Hendrick Motorsports driver continues to battle vertigo. Bowman will be replaced by JR Motorsports driver Justin Allagier for this weekend’s race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Allgaier, a JR Motorsports driver in the O’Reilly Series (formerly Xfinity) who has 84 career Cup starts and frequently performs on-track data collection tests for Chevrolet, won the O’Reilly race last March in Vegas. “Alex continues to work closely with doctors to obtain medical clearance, but he is still experiencing persistent symptoms,” Hendrick Motorsports President Jeff Andrews said in a press release. “He has invested heavily in the recovery process and we will continue to support him every step of the way. Our priority remains ensuring Alex is fully ready before returning to the race car.” Even if he returns to Darlington next week, Bowman will be far from making the playoffs. Already last in the regular season standings among the 36 full-time drivers before last week, Bowman is now 77 points behind the current playoff threshold and will likely be more than 100 points behind after Las Vegas. Bowman, 32, missed races in three separate seasons for medical reasons. He missed five races in 2022 because of a concussion and three races in 2023 because of a broken back. He was replaced last week at Phoenix by Viking Motorsports O’Reilly Series driver Anthony Alfredo, who is also the HMS simulator driver. Alfredo had worked his way into the top 10 before being involved in an accident. He was not injured.