NASCAR: Bubba Wallace ‘exceeding expectations’ at 23XI Racing

Despite a rough start to their first NASCAR Cup Series season, 23XI Racing have been exceeding expectations, according to Bubba Wallace.

We are more than one-third of the way through the 26-race 2021 NASCAR Cup Series regular season, and we are exactly one-quarter of the way through the entire 36-race campaign.

Nine races into the more than two-month-old season, Bubba Wallace and 23XI Racing are still experiencing the growing pains that many expected them to face in the team’s first season of competition.

The Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin-owned team have a technical alliance with Joe Gibbs Racing, but Wallace’s results have not yet come close to matching the results of the four Joe Gibbs Racing Toyotas.

Through nine races, Wallace has yet to finish higher than 16th place.

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The 27-year-old Mobile, Alabama native sits in 20th place in the point standings, 36 points below the playoff cut line, with top finishes of 16th place at Phoenix Raceway, Atlanta Motor Speedway and Martinsville Speedway, and an average finish of 21.6 behind the wheel of the #23 Toyota.

Interestingly, despite the struggles, he is still on for a career year, as his top finish in the championship standings in three seasons as a full-time driver for Richard Petty Motorsports was his 22nd place finish last year, six positions better than his 28th place finishes in 2018 and 2019.

He did have a better average finish last season (21.1) that he does so far this season, but he has already led 30 laps this year; he led just 34 in the 2018, 2019 and 2020 seasons combined.

However, Wallace set a goal to win at least two races this season, so these struggles have come as alarming to some considering he and the team really haven’t even been in the ballpark.

The only other full-time drivers whose top finishes are not inside the top 15 are Stewart-Haas Racing rookie Chase Briscoe, Front Row Motorsports rookie Anthony Alfredo, StarCom Racing’s Quin Houff, Rick Ware Racing’s Josh Bilicki and Petty Ware Racing’s Cody Ware.

Save for Briscoe, whose start to the season has been a major disappointment, with a lot of that stemming from Stewart-Haas Racing’s struggles, these aren’t the drivers with whom Wallace should be keeping company on a regular basis.

But Wallace believes that there is progress being made, and he even noted that Jordan is watching and likes what he sees.

Here is what he he had to say about Jordan ahead of his 26th place finish at Richmond Raceway on Sunday, according to NASCAR.

"“He understands motorsport is a little different. He had a superbike team. You know you can’t win every race. Having Denny as co-owner there is managing expectations, and from the sounds of it, talking with Denny, we are exceeding expectations that they kind of had set in place before the season started. After our good runs, I’m getting a text from MJ saying, ‘Good job, kid.’ It’s stuff like that’s like, that’s pretty cool.“He’s paying attention. Yeah, he knows we’re not winning, but he knows we’re continuing to make steps to make progress. It’s not something you just jump right into and expect to win. You’re living in fairy-tale land if you expect that to happen. Do we expect to win? Absolutely. But we have to do a lot of work in the meantime to get to that level. This sport is tough.”"

The 10th race of the 2021 season, which many pegged as a potential breakthrough race for Wallace and 23XI Racing even before the season began, is this Sunday’s GEICO 500. This race is set to be broadcast live on Fox from Talladega Superspeedway beginning at 2:00 p.m. ET.