Crew chief for Daniel Suárez fires back at Alex Bowman accusations
Alex Bowman delivered some pretty interesting accusations against Daniel Suárez’s No. 99 team following their incident at Darlington on Sunday.
For context, Suárez was seemingly wrecked by Bowman in a scuffle that could’ve been avoided in the Southern 500. With Stage 3 winding down, the Hendrick star laid down not one, but two huge blocks on Suárez, and the Trackhouse Racing wheelman wasn’t going to let the No. 48 get away with it.
Instead of lifting into the turn, Suárez decided to stay in the gas, and while he was ultimately in the right in the eyes of many, it ended up wrecking both cars, and collected Harrison Burton as well. Afterwards, both drivers had some choice words for each other, with Suárez calling Bowman “dumb,” and it’s evident the No. 48 wheelman had an issue with that.
However, instead of simply firing back at Suárez, Bowman accused the No. 99’s crew chief, Travis Mack, of flipping him off on the way to the airport in the past.
“Obviously it didn’t work, so he chose not to lift and to crash us. But every time I race the No. 99, he does something dumb,” responded Bowman, via NBC. “Whether it’s his crew chief flipping me off on the way to the airport, or just anytime I’m around him, he blocks me really aggressively. So that’s just part of it sometimes, and obviously the block didn’t work out. Looking back, I shouldn’t have done it. We were just really tight on the short-run, and I knew I needed to hang on to whatever track position I could. So kind of just got a bad run off of four being tight. Saw he had a run. Knew if I could hold on for a couple laps, that we’d be really good.
“But yeah, he wants to call me dumb, every time I’m around him there’s a big block. So that’s just part of racing sometimes.”
Evidently, that’s something Mack doesn’t exactly recall, as he refuted the accusation on Twitter following seeing Bowman’s interview.
“I don’t think I’ve ever flipped someone off. Haha. This has me LOL from the messages I’m receiving,” tweeted Mack. “I Better make a T shirt before Alex does.”
Ironically enough, Mack previously worked with Hendrick Motorsports before taking his talents to Trackhouse, which adds a whole different layer to the story. Now the question becomes, did Travis Mack actually flip Alex Bowman off, and if he didn’t, why did Bowman simply assume it was the Trackhouse Racing crew chief?
It’s going to be fascinating to see how the two Chevrolet teams race each other moving forward, and whether Alex Bowman or Daniel Suárez, or even Travis Mack, dive into more regarding their incident at Darlington.