Two Hendrick Motorsports drivers spent the Brickyard 400 weekend and the days after it talking about the end of their careers. They arrived at almost opposite conclusions.
Kyle Larson has been answering questions about retirement since 2018, when he told the Open Red podcast he wanted to leave the Cup Series before turning 40 to chase a full-time winged Sprint Car championship. The comment landed badly with a section of the NASCAR audience, and Larson pushed back at the time.
"Look, the money is great," he said then. "But I wouldn't be here if I didn't love NASCAR and have fun every week. Sprint cars are extremely fun and high horsepower, but I want to be here."
Eight years on, the plan itself has gone. Larson, now 33, told Motorsport.com that 40 still functions as a checkpoint, but no longer as an exit.
"I started saying this last year, but 40 is my next milestone," Larson said. "I want to get there and then evaluate if I want to keep going or be done. It all depends on where my kids are in their lives and interests."
The Sprint Car title, specifically, is off the table.
"As far as competing for a Sprint Car championship, I would say right now in 2026, that I have changed my mind on that. I feel like I have accomplished a lot since I made those comments," Larson said. "I just don't know what a championship would add to my career so I'm just not into the idea now."
There is a practical objection too. Owen Larson is 12 and already winning restricted micro features; Audrey, 8, has won a Junior Sprint A-Main at Port City Raceway; Cooper is approaching four. A full Sprint Car season would put their father on the road while his children start their own.
"I think my kids are going to be busy doing their own racing by that time, so do I really want to commit to an 80-to-90 race schedule? That's way busier than I am now," Larson said, laughing.
Since 2018 he has won two Cup championships, three Knoxville Nationals, three Chili Bowls and a Kings Royal, and co-founded High Limit Racing as a rival to the World of Outlaws. Rick Hendrick has said he would have signed him to a lifetime deal had Larson been willing.
"I just feel like I have a really good balance in my schedule this year and I'm enjoying that," Larson said. "But you never know, and six or seven years down the road, things might change."
His team-mate is giving himself no such room. Alex Bowman confirmed at Indianapolis on 24 July that he will stop racing full-time after 2027, and when asked whether a strong final season might tempt him back, he was blunt.
"I'm just not going to continue racing," Bowman said. "I would love to end on a really high note (where) everything goes perfect and we go win a championship and I can walk out that way. That would be amazing (but) that's not going to make me want to stay."
Bowman, 33, has framed the decision around wanting a normal life rather than around the concussions, the broken back in 2023 or the vertigo that cost him four races this year. He also ruled out the obvious second career.
"I don't know that anybody wants to listen to me on the broadcast, if I'm being honest," he said. "I would say some dumb stuff and probably get fired pretty quickly. I can't believe that hasn't happened to me in my driving career."
Hendrick Motorsports president Jeff Andrews expects him to stay inside the building regardless.
"Retirement is an old word, but Alex uses it, and Alex is family," Andrews said. "There are certainly some other opportunities within the Hendrick family, on the performance side, because he is a car guy and loves to go fast. Mr. Hendrick has quite a few cars, as we know, and there's a tie there so I would not be surprised if Alex is around our campus for some time after next year."
Bowman has eight Cup wins across 15 years, all of them with Hendrick, after a start at Tommy Baldwin Racing and BK Racing that left him selling his seats to make rent in 2016. Larson has 27 wins in his last 32 seasons' worth of Hendrick opportunity and no fixed departure date at all.
Larson has called Bowman the best team-mate he has had in NASCAR. Within a year of each other in age, the two are now on entirely different clocks.
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*Originally published on [Motorsports Global](https://motorsports.global/article/larson-rethinks-his-40th-as-bowman-shuts-the-door-for-good). Visit for full coverage.*