I was worried about this when Chase Elliott got injured earlier this season in a snowboarding accident in Colorado. To miss six races could potentially put him in the position that he’s in today – likely needing a win to advance to the postseason.

Similar for Alex Bowman when he injured his back in a sprint car crash this spring. He’d miss three races too.

Between the injures, Elliott’s suspension from his actions at Charlotte to the points penalty for Bowman from Richmond, all these have added up that Bowman is 42 points behind the cutline in 20th and Elliott 60 back in 22nd.

With six races remaining, I feel like the best path now for each to make the playoffs is to win. I don’t think they can rely on pointsing their ways in anymore because on the surface, they’re just not operating on a good enough pattern to be consistent enough to do so.

They’re too far out I fear.

On Monday, Hendrick Motorsports largely struggled. Kyle Larson finished third but was their only driver in the top 10. Chase Elliott was next best in 12th. Bowman was 14th and William Byron in 24th.

In their defense, I didn’t expect much out of them this past weekend anyhow.

Their last win at Loudon came back in 2012. In 2021, they finished 7-9-18-21. Last year was 2-11-14-35.

However, they’ve been so good on like tracks this year which also gave me pause for optimism.

In Phoenix, they went 1-4-9-10. In Richmond it was 1-2-8-24. At Martinsville, 1-10-11-23. Gateway they struggled at 4-8-21-26.

So which wins out?

It was the lack of Loudon success that did.

Elliott has had just two top five finishes in 10 starts there, but one was a runner-up last season. However, he missed Phoenix, Richmond and Gateway this year and in those races, the 9 car struggled. It took some strategy to get them towards the front. They lacked pace here too.

Byron has no top 10’s in six tries now but won Phoenix, had a car to win Richmond, was 23rd in Martinsville and eighth in Gateway.

Bowman has just one top 10 (9th in 2021) in the same five starts as Byron. On like tracks this season, he was ninth, eighth, 11th and 26th respectively.

So, in all reality, we shouldn’t have expected much out of them for Loudon anyhow. But, for them moving forward, it’s getting dire.

With missing races, it cost Elliott and Bowman all their momentum.

Elliott had a runner-up in Fontana then was injured. It took a few weeks to get back into the swing of things when he came back with finishes of 10th, 12th, 11th in the first three weeks. Then he rattled off five top sevens in a six races span. However, he’s back to mediocre again with 13th and 12th in back-to-back weeks.

For Bowman, he had six Top-10 finishes in the first seven races of the season. In the last 10? None.

In my opinion, these don’t look like race winning teams at the moment and that’s scary that they may realistically miss the playoffs.

For Pocono, yes Elliott won last year, but that was more by default. The top two cars were DQ’d. Elliott led no laps and crossed the finish line in third. Prior to last year, Elliott had no finishes better than fourth and four of his last five had seen him finish 12th or worse at that.

Bowman had a win and seventh place finish in 2021 to go along with a ninth in Race 2 of 2020 gives him three Top-10 finishes in his last four tries. He was 11th a year ago. Maybe this is a good start for him to get his season back on track.

After, we go to Richmond to where the 9 car struggled for pace before a pit call late. Elliott has finished only 10th, 11th and on short tracks this season and Richmond isn’t one of his better tracks.

Bowman lucked into that 2021 win for his only Top-5 in 11 Richmond starts. He was eighth this past spring and ninth in Phoenix. Bowman was also 11th in Martinsville too.

Then it’s to Michigan.

Elliott has 10 Top-10 finishes in 12 Michigan starts, but after three straight runner-ups to start his Cup career at Michigan, he’s not had a Top-5 since though too. He was 11th last year.

Bowman has no top fives with HMS at Michigan including his last four finishes being 21st, 36th, 16th and ninth respectively.

Then it’s down to Indianapolis, Watkins Glen and Daytona.

Not good to have to rely on wildcard races to get in.

Even if they do find a win, how long do you expect them to stay in the playoffs right now anyways? These two teams need to get their acts together and do so quickly.