Photo credit: Gavin Baker Photography

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After walking away from a 2021 karting crash in his home state of Texas with a cracked rib, Jett Bowling nearly stopped his brief racing career.

“I kind of said (to myself), you know what, that’s the end of the story,” Bowling said.

It turned out the crash that sidelined him for nearly eight months was not the end, but instead a trajectory-defining moment that started a long comeback. Now 19, Bowling will be one of the two Americans – the other being McLaren junior Ugo Ugochukwu – competing in the 2024 Macau Grand Prix next month. 

He is very likely to also take third place in the Formula Regionals America Championship next weekend at the Circuit of the Americas, a stunning result from a driver who stepped in a race car for the first time only a year ago.

That same circuit is where his story changed.

That is thanks to Jett’s father, Jeff Bowling. Jeff Bowling is a businessman and racing fanatic that had an optimistic outlook on his son’s racing career even when Jett did not. 

Jett joked that his dad was also a guy who wanted his sons to have exciting names. Jett’s brother is named Cash Bowling, who has a photography account on Instagram where he has taken photos as his brother’s races.

Jeff and Jett traveled around the time of the karting accident to the Circuit of the Americas to watch the 2021 United States Grand Prix where they became aware of the junior formula scene in the United States. 

Jett giggled while describing that shortly after, his father cold-emailed the Formula 4 United States Championship’s email without consulting him to see if his son could race.

His inquiry, perhaps surprisingly, worked. The next people Jeff Bowling reached out to upon recommendation were co-owners Gerry Orton and Teena Larsen of F4 powerhouse Crosslink Kiwi Motorsport, who, like the Bowling family, was based in Texas. 

His son still had no knowledge of what he was doing.

“He said to me, ‘Hey, we’re gonna go meet these people who own a F4 team,’” Bowling said. “And I’m like ‘Okay, whatever.’”

Bowling still had serious doubts about any future in racing.

He did not kart at all until 2020. He was 15 when he started, a much later age than most on any open-wheel grid.

“I lost hope that maybe I could make it to a professional racing level,” Jett Bowling said. “I thought I’d keep around the local track for fun and I was fine with that.”

Through his dad’s persistence and a successful meeting, Bowling landed a F4 test. After his ribs recovered and promising tests snowballed, Orton presented him the opportunity to spend the second half of the season in F4.

Bowling only cracked the top-20 in the three of his first seven races and began the weekend at Virginia International Raceway with a retirement after running thirteenth. But Bowling’s best finish of the season came right after with an 11th place in race 2.

The final race was an opportunity for Bowling to push further.

He ran a clean race and was 14th with only 10 minutes to go. He capitalized on a spinning Carl Bennett and Michael Costello heading off-track to reach 12th in an incident-heavy race where penalties were bound to be handed out. They did, and Bowling landed his first career point, finishing tenth from 18th on the grid.

It was a consolation prize. With 2024 approaching and with Bowling possibly moving to the faster Formula Regional Americas Championship, tenth was not the highlight he hoped for.

In the offseason, he got a new coach in Ryan Yardley. Yardley had seven podiums in Formula Regional Americas himself with Crosslink Kiwi in 2022. In the early stages, Yardley acted as a translator of sorts, communicating issues with the car to engineers. Feedback is a skill Bowling committed to improving at as well at this time.

“I’m always trying to get better at it, always reading articles and books,” Bowling said. “Understanding what the car is doing and why it’s doing it is so important, and it also helps your driving.”

After improving back home, the next stop was overseas in the Formula Regional Oceania Championship, formerly known as the Toyota Racing Series. Despite his improvement, racing there seemed almost Herculean for a driver like Bowling. 

Only six months after racing in a F4 car for the first time, he was matched up against Formula 2 drivers like Christian Mansell and top Formula Regional drivers from around the world like Roman Bilinski and Alpine Academy driver Nicola LaCorte. Even drivers much further up the ladder in America, like Indy NXT’s Jacob Abel and Callum Hedge, were going to be a significant challenge for Bowling.

But, racing a full season in two months was what Bowling felt he needed to improve.

“It was just so much seat time,” Bowling said. “Obviously, seat time is everything when it comes to racing and that was the main catalyst (for my improvement.)”

Bowling finished 12th in Formula Regional Oceania. He was still near the bottom of the field but was on pace among drivers from around the world. Out of the five Americans partaking in the series, Bowling finished first.

Back at home in Formula Regional Americas, the effects of Bowling’s offseason work were apparent immediately in early 2024.

Bowling kicked the year off with a fifth-place finish in both the second and third races of the season at NOLA Motorsports Park. While some retirements early on kept him out of championship contention, Bowling had the breakout weekend he was inching toward at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in June.

After a career-best fourth-place finish in race 1, Bowling found himself starting in the same spot in race 2. Bowling made the most of separate incidents involving teammates Patrick Woods-Toth and Titus Sherlock to take second, which he ended up holding through a safety car restart.

Once he got his first podium, Bowling landed on the podium for six of the next nine races as he showed incredible consistency for someone only in car racing for a year. Even with all the podiums, none were wins. He enters next weekend’s round at the Circuit of the Americas still trying to chase that elusive first.

Every once in a while with team owner Orton’s approval, Bowling takes the three-hour round trip from Dallas to the small town of Cresson where most of his testing work happens.

Cresson only has 700 people and lies around 45 minutes from the outskirts of Dallas’s neighboring city Fort Worth. A majority of the 13 square miles in the city’s limits are taken up by a 3-mile racing circuit known as the Cresson Motorsport Ranch. Numerous racing teams including Crosslink Kiwi are headquartered around its perimeter, utilizing the track for convenient testing.

It’s here where Bowling tackles his greatest challenge. Race starts.

“I’ve just lacked the aggressiveness on starts and restarts to challenge the driver in front of me,” Bowling said. “It has always kind of hurt.”

To remedy this, Bowling joked that he’d “beg” Orton to let him come to Cresson to hit the track for an hour to let him do practice starts in the Formula Regional car. 

Bowling also relies on the data coming from teammates such as Sherlock, who has made a name for himself in Formula Regional Americas for his aggressive and often successful driving style immediately once the race begins.

“I get in the car and get to the start line, and then when the lights go out, and then, brain fart,” Bowling said. “It’s really frustrating to me. I’m in the car going ‘Don’t mess it up, don’t mess it up, don’t mess it up,’ and then every time I mess it up.”

To Bowling, that is the last piece he needs to cap off his Formula Regional Americas season this year with an elusive first win.

During the midst of his breakout 2024 season, Bowling sat down with his parents for dinner one night.

His dad Jeff looked over at his son, whose racing career he played such an integral part in.

“Kiwi Motorsport said, you know, they can give you a seat for the Macau race,” Jett recalled his father saying.

Jett was in disbelief. 

“You don’t, you don’t mean Macau, that’s not right,” Jett Bowling said as he stumbled over his words.  

Jeff Bowling didn’t quite understand what Macau meant in a racing context, but his son was acutely aware. 

Senna and Schumacher are among the most illustrious names of Macau Grand Prix winners. Hamilton and Vettel both competed in the 21st century. Racing royalty ends up in many places, but generally, they all head through Macau at one point.

They brought up videos of the race, where Formula Regional cars blitz through city streets only inches away from walls that separate buildings by the same distance. Jeff Bowling’s jaw dropped as Jett’s mother couldn’t watch out of nervousness.

But for Jett Bowling, he saw the honor as the culmination of a long journey of growth and resilience.

“It’s crazy to think that a little over a year ago, I sat in that F4 car for the first time and now I’m heading to Macau in two weeks,” Bowling said. “It’s such a blessing. I just feel like I’ve hit so many lottery tickets in my career.”

But before Bowling heads there, he has to tackle two Formula 1 tracks in back-to-back weeks. He has gotten the chance thanks to his Formula Regional Americas success to run two rounds in the Formula Regional European Championship. This weekend, he’ll contest the series finale at Monza. 

Then, it’s back to Austin for the Texan, where his final send-off before Macau will be in his home state, at the same place where a persistent father changed his career forever.

“My dad did this all behind my back,” Bowling said. “And you know, I couldn’t thank him enough for it.”

For more info about Bowling and other drivers in Formula Regional Americas, check out framericas.com.

The 2024 Macau Grand Prix will take place in three weeks time. For more info about the race, see https://www.macau.grandprix.gov.mo/en/