The finish of Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series DuraMAX Texas Grand Prix race at Circuit of the Americas saw a 38th driver enter the 37-driver race.
AUSTIN -- The finish of Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series DuraMAX Texas Grand Prix race at Circuit of the Americas saw a 38th driver enter the 37-driver race.
© Mark J. Rebilas | 2023 Feb 18 From being a pit road spotter to being put in one of the top cars in the NASCAR Cup Series field, Myatt Snider had a Sunday he wasn't expecting.
With around 35 laps to go, Alex Bowman reported he hadn't been feeling well and that he wasn't sure if he was going to make it to the end. The team gave him the choice to get out of the car or keep going, telling him they'd have have a relief driver for him "in a couple laps" while also adding, "There's no difference between finishing right now or not. Points don't matter. Whatever you need."
Eventually, Bowman drove the car back to the hauler to do the driver swap. Medical crews carted him to the infield care center while his car spent a lengthy amount of time in the garage as Myatt Snider got ready to get into the car.
"As soon as you can. What is the braking point for the turn off the esses at COTA," Snider texted close friend and driver Brad Perez, who posted the text on x.
As a caution fell with around 21 laps to go for Ross Chastain losing a wheel, Snider brought the No. 48 car back on to the track, five laps down. While he ran lap times a couple of seconds off of the pace and didn't have any attrition that could've allowed him to move up in the running order, Snider got the car to the finish line and finished 36th, six laps down, after running out of gas near the end.
After the race, ninth-place finisher A.J. Allmendinger fell to the same fate as Bowman. Allmendinger laid down on pit road and was eventually carted away, awake, to the infield care center.
© Michael C. Johnson | 2026 Mar 1 The 83-degree day -- the warmest raceday by far this season -- saw Snider secure a point for Bowman, who now sits 36th in points, 45 points behind 16th-place and a Chase spot. Bowman is in a tough spot after finishing 40th at Daytona and 23rd at EchoPark Atlanta.
Next is Phoenix Raceway, where Bowman finished 15th in the fall race and seventh in the spring race last year.
Hendrick Motorsports released a statement on the situation at COTA:
“It was an unexpected situation. Alex wasn’t feeling well enough to continue, so we made the call to get him out of the car. It came on suddenly. He was seen in the care center and received fluids, but we don’t have anything further to share at this time. We’re grateful to Myatt for stepping in on such short notice.”