Summary: The series of 12 Questions interviews continues this week with Alex Bowman of Hendrick Motorsports. Bowman, a Tucson native, is returning to his home track at ISM Raceway this weekend. This interview is recorded as a podcast but also transcribed below.<br> 1. How often do you have dreams about racing?<br> I guess it just depends on previous racing experiences. I feel like after Phoenix two years ago (when he almost won), I dreamt about that ending going a whole lot differently every night for a while. But recently, not very often.<br> If I’m going to play a game on my phone — if I play a lot of Candy Crush or something, I have Candy Crush dreams. I was thinking that since you’ve been in the simulator so much…<br> No, I definitely didn’t dream about the simulator, that’s for sure. But yeah, that’s kind of odd — you might want to get that checked out.<br> 2. If you get into someone during a race — intentional or not — does it matter if you apologize?<br> It depends on the situation. And there’s pros and cons to when you apologize as well. Like if you run up right after the race is over, it’s gonna be on the TV highlight reel and TV loves it, the media loves it — but sometimes it gets blown out of proportion, because there are a bunch of angry crew members around and people start yelling and it becomes a bigger mess than it could be if you let the situation calm down first. So I think it really is just situational.<br> 3. What is the biggest compliment someone could give you?<br> I think for me, I guess it’s easier to ask the biggest compliment I’ve gotten, and that was from Jimmie Johnson in 2014 when I first started running Cup cars. He came up to me after the Vegas race, and he’s like, “Man, when I was lapping you at Vegas, that thing was terrible, out of control. I don’t know how you were driving it.” So just to hear a guy say you’re doing a really good job with what you’ve got to work with, that meant a lot.<br> Had you ever talked to him before that?<br> Not really, no. So it was pretty cool.<br> 4. NASCAR comes to you and says, “Hey, we are bringing a celebrity to the race and we’re wondering if you have time to say hi.” Who is a celebrity you’d be really excited to host?<br> That’s a tough one. Obviously Peyton Manning, but we’ve already gotten to do that. Jennifer Aniston, I’d be pretty excited about. (Laughs)<br> She’s newly single, by the way.<br> Is she? You’re way more up on this stuff than I am.<br> I read it on Snapchat — they have the Daily Mail tab.<br> I don’t even know how to get to that.<br> It’s over on the news side.<br> I mean, Snapchat’s gotten so confusing lately. What happened?<br> Yeah, I might be done with it unless they switch back.<br> It’s like the same thing that happened to Jayski. Like, what happened?<br> 5. In an effort to show they are health-conscious, NASCAR offers the No. 1 pit stall selection for an upcoming race to the first driver willing to go vegan for a month. Would you do it?<br> I saw this question on the previous one. Heck no. Heck no!<br> No takers so far on this at all.<br> I mean, it’s such an advantage. I guess honestly, if that really happened, you’re gonna get sat down at your team meeting and be like, “Hey, you’re gonna be a vegan now.” But personally, like…no!<br> 6. It’s time for the Random Race Challenge. I have picked a random race from your career and you have to guess where you finished.<br> Oh gosh — 36th. (Laughs)<br> This is the 2015 Dover spring race for Cup.<br> Oh, we ran really good that day. I mean, for what we had. Did we finish 20th?<br> Yes! You did finish 20th!<br> I mean, we got the ol’ 7 to run 20th, we were winning. That was high fives all around after the race.
