SEBRING, Fla. — How old were you when you knew what you wanted to be when you grew up? Do you even know now? We’re introducing you to Alex Bowen, and it’s a name you’ll want to remember because Alex is lighting the Florida racing world on fire, all before he can even legally drive.
Bowen is a 15-year-old sophomore at St. Petersburg High School. Like any other teenager, you’ll have to forgive him if algebra sometimes has him daydreaming, but unlike other kids, Alex’s dream of racing cars is real.
He’s being recruited to join the Lamborghini Super Trofeo racing series, which would make him one of the youngest race car drivers in the world.
To get formal offers from teams, he had to prove himself on a crowded test day at Sebring International Raceway. If he does well, he’ll start his first race later this year — a lot of pressure for 15.
Ever since Alex could move, he’s wanted to go fast.
“Everything he could get a hold of had to be a machine for driving,” his mom, Paula, said. “He turned cardboard into steering wheels.”
He fell in love with go-karting at Andersen Racepark in Manatee County. But he didn’t start taking racing seriously until COVID-19 hit.
“I played everything, I played football for multiple years and I just got bored,” Alex says. “I had a year and a half of just sitting around so there was a local karting team and that’s how I started.”
It wasn’t long before Alex was beating his dad Kris on the track.
“One day, I think he put a three-second gap on me, and I knew I couldn’t get that close,” Alex’s dad, Kris, said. “I tried and I tried and from that day on, he just never looked back.”
Soon Alex was on the podium taking trophies at major karting championships in Florida. After weighing the cost of entering, his parents and he jumped to cars, showcasing his talent in private test runs.
“Once we tested cars, you couldn’t put him backwards,” Paula said. “He likes karts for fun but every car is faster and he wants to go faster.”
Alex spends hours practicing inside a homemade racing simulator. Sebring is just one of hundreds of tracks he can drive over and over again, learning every turn and finding every line. But the sim can’t prepare Alex for the real course, built on an old airstrip. Sebring is so bumpy it makes driving a blur. And yet Alex, in front of friends and family, he powered past the other cars — the fastest driver on the track, topping out over 170 miles per hour.
“To go out there in the middle of that pack, and work your way through the pack, you know what I mean?” Kris said. “And can’t drive a car on the street! 15 years old.”
“For me it’s scary but watching him try to achieve a dream? I did that,” Paula said. “Go for your dreams while you can. So I’m proud. Just really proud.”
Two cameras inside the car let Alex and his coach, Lamborghini factory driver Loris Spinelli, break down the tape. Alex’s goal was to hang with Spinelli’s lap time, which he did, beating his fastest lap by a few hundredths of a second.
Since the test at Sebring, teams have continued courting Alex to race for them, beginning in May at Laguna Seca Raceway in California. In the process of getting his racing license, it would be only two weeks before his 16th birthday.
“Hopefully get signed on with Lamborghini to be a development driver and then next year, if that’s where I am, hopefully I am, is totally up for grabs,” Alex said.
But Alex’s career launch isn’t a done deal yet. Even if a team signs him, his family still has to come up with about $75,000 in sponsorships for him to race that one race in California. With his dad on the phone nonstop, it’s easy to see that happening for him.
So what’s the long-term goal for Alex? Formula One of course. He wants to race on the world’s top circuit like his idol Lewis Hamilton. But he says, he also wants to race in the St. Pete Grand Prix, next year.