Alex Bowman’s favorite Batman villain — crew chief Greg Ives — has earned his distinctive nickname, one that offers a nod toward his sometimes cryptic messages over in-car communications. That handle will stick for a fourth consecutive year, as Ives will make the shift with Bowman from Hendrick Motorsports’ No. 88 Chevrolet to its No. 48 ride in 2021.
“They just keep hitting me with riddles,” Bowman said with a grin, “so the Riddler is back.”
The continued pairing ensures Bowman will start another season with Ives, who has helped his driver assemble one of his strongest playoff bids to date. Bowman acknowledged some ebbs that have gone with the flows during their three years together, most notably a sluggish start to last season and a midsummer swoon this year. But Bowman has also noted their growth, which has cemented their driver-crew chief chemistry in sometimes unconventional ways.
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“Regardless of if things were going well or not, I feel like our team has stayed strong together, and Greg and I have done a really good job of communicating,” Bowman said. “To continue to work with Greg, it’s awesome. He’s a great person; a little bit awkward and goofy. He’s like a 9 on the awkward scale, and I’m like a 7, so you know we balance each other out really well.”
The phrase “good job of communicating” comes with a caveat, which is where the Riddler nickname — first brought to public light in 2018 — comes in. Bowman hinted he may need to keep a translation dictionary handy to decipher his crew chief’s radio messages, which are sometimes delivered in code due to his ultra-secretive nature.
“I mean, he just likes to be discreet on the radio and not say obvious things, I guess, and try to keep information to ourselves,” Bowman said. “So he will literally talk in riddles, and it gets really confusing. I’m like, ‘Man, I’m trying to drive. Just tell me what’s going on.’ He’s always looking for that little edge and trying to fool people a little bit. He just tends to talk in riddles a little bit, so we just started calling him the Riddler.”
Ives’ credentials go beyond the nickname, and he has history and familiarity with the No. 48’s pedigree. The 41-year-old crew chief was the No. 48 team engineer from 2006-12 during Johnson’s run of five consecutive Cup Series championships. His transition to a crew chief role helped guide JR Motorsports and Chase Elliott to an Xfinity Series title in 2014.
That history set the foundation for him to take over Hendrick’s No. 88 Chevy as its crew chief, where he has scored five Cup Series wins — three with Dale Earnhardt Jr. and two in his time with Bowman. His latest move represents a type of homecoming.
“It’s pretty special to be able to represent a number that gave me a lot of success early on in my career, and actually built my career, allowed me great opportunities to become crew chief and opened doors for me that probably would never have opened,” Ives said. “My goal is to honor the number by continuing on the great heritage that it has — winning races, championships and being a great team in the sport. Jimmie was able to build that with his character on and off the race track.”
Johnson has seen Ives’ impact up close but also seen his recent development in his partnership with Bowman — one that has been based on mutual trust.
“We all have our own unique style on how we communicate, how we work together, and the success that that yields,” Johnson said. “To watch Greg and Alex really connect and be able to say so little but get so much across. I can only say that because I see them behind the scenes and the way they interact at the shop and understand how they talk in the race, the progression or their setups, their cars and where they go. I mean, Alex has so much trust in Greg. It lets Greg be the creative mad scientist he needs to be to build a fast race car, and then Greg trusts Alex just to jump in there and wheel it and make it happen. So to see that bond between them grow and the trust between the two of them on those levels has really produced the success, and I know it will continue to do so in the future.”
Filling one ride at Hendrick Motorsports has created a vacancy for another. Tuesday’s news break indicated plans for the No. 88 Chevrolet and for Cliff Daniels — the No. 48 team’s current crew chief — would be announced at a later date. Daniels joined Johnson for the final 15 races last year and 2020 has marked his first full season atop the pit box.
“Cliff’s done an amazing job, and to be able to win a championship with him as an engineer and races with him as an engineer and to see him grow into this crew chief role, he has a really bright future,” Johnson said. “And I look forward to seeing what happens for him in 2021.”
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For the rest of this season, Bowman and Ives have more goals to achieve as they finish out their term in Hendrick’s No. 88 Chevy. Bowman, who landed his second career victory earlier this season at Auto Club Speedway, now sits 22 points on the plus side of the cutoff line in the playoff picture, heading to Sunday’s Round of 12 finale (2:30 p.m. ET on NBC/NBC Sports App, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) on the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval.
Four drivers will be eliminated from title contention after the Charlotte Roval event. Avoiding that cut and making the Round of 8 would mark the furthest the Bowman-Ives combo has advanced in the playoffs during the 27-year-old driver’s Cup Series career. It would also continue the team’s comeback from its midseason blues.
“The summer was really rough on us, but I think it showed how strong we can continue to work together,” Bowman said. “The whole team did such a great job staying positive and continuing to work hard and not letting those hard months kind of beat us down. We weren’t running how we wanted to be, but everybody still stuck together. That was really cool to see, and now to see that paying off here over the last couple weeks and to be running well through the playoffs when it counts is really cool.”
In his 2016 title season, Bonsignore won eight of 16 races and tallied 12 top fives. He won six more times last year, including the finale at Thompson, but came up eight points short of Coby.
