NASCAR Official Explains Alex Bowman’s Chase Waiver Status

What’s Happening?

With Alex Bowman sidelined with vertigo, fans are questioning his eligibility status for NASCAR’s Chase postseason. During the latest episode of NASCAR’s Hauler Talk podcast, NASCAR executive Mike Forde explained the current status of Alex Bowman.

This past offseason, NASCAR made changes to how the sport crowns its champions, moving away from a win-an-in elimination style “Playoff” format, and reverting to a new version of the Chase format used from 2004 to 2013.

While there are plenty of differences between the Playoff and Chase format, and even more differences between the current Chase and its predecessors, there are still some minor similarities between the two, including the rules around making the 16-driver Chase.

For one, a driver must either compete in all 36 races of the NASCAR Cup Series season to qualify for the Chase. Much like the Playoff era, if a driver misses a race for any reason, in order to make the Chase (as unlikely as it would seem at that point), they must request a Chase Waiver from NASCAR to race.

Four races into the 2026 NASCAR National Series season, two drivers are already in need of a waiver if they want to make their respective series Chases.  

The first is Brent Crew in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, who will miss select races early on this season due to age restrictions, and the other driver is Hendrick Motorsports’ Alex Bowman, who, as of this coming Sunday, will miss at least two races due to a vertigo diagnosis following race three of the season at Circuit of the Americas.

Bowman’s Waiver Status

During this week’s episode of NASCAR’s Hauler Talk podcast, NASCAR Managing Director for Racing Communications, Mike Forde, gave fans an update on the No. 48 team’s waiver status.

Per Forde, as of the taping of that episode, which NASCAR released Wednesday (prior to Hendrick Motorsports’ Thursday morning confirmation that Bowman will not be in the No. 48 this weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway), HMS has yet to request a waiver for Bowman to compete in the 2026 Chase, should he finish the first 26 races in the top 16.

While this delay may seem odd to those unfamiliar with the process, Forde said that this is par for the course, as teams usually will file that request the week leading up to the race week that the injured driver plans to return to action.

“As far as the waiver goes, no waiver has been requested yet,” Forde said. “Typically that does happen when there’s an announcement that a driver’s going to return.”

After Hendrick requests a Chase waiver for Bowman, that waiver is then sent to NASCAR’s Competition Leadership Team, which decides whether or not to grant the waiver. In the past, most drivers, especially those out for family or medical-related reasons, were granted a waiver.

Forde says he expects that the HMS driver will get his waiver, saying that in situations like Bowman’s, to his recollection, NASCAR has a “100% rate of granting a waiver.”

If Bowman Gets a Waiver

While Vertigo is a challenging illness that can last some time, when and if Bowman returns, it will be a real challenge for the No. 48 team to make the Chase, even if he has a waiver.

First and foremost, the Chase no longer features the win-and-in clause, which created a system in which a driver could miss one of the 36 races and, with a Playoff waiver, make the postseason and race for a championship by winning a regular-season race, in most cases, despite their potentially massive points deficit.

Even though the Arizona Native is already facing an uphill climb without this small crutch, a tough start to the 2026 season, in which Bowman scored just 23 points in three races, may have ended No. 48’s 2026 before it had a chance to begin.

This means that the best hope for Bowman to win a championship would be to win as many races as he can, as winners receive 15 more points than second place under the new points system. Nonetheless, with two races already off the board for Bowman, this steep climb back into contention looks even more difficult than it did after COTA.

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