NASCAR: Bubba Wallace believes he can be tough to beat
By Asher Fair
Bubba Wallace has struggled to start his first NASCAR Cup Series season with 23XI Racing, but he has reason to believe things are turning around.
The first season for 23XI Racing in the NASCAR Cup Series season has been somewhat of a struggle for Bubba Wallace, who made the move from Richard Petty Motorsports to the Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin-owned team for his fourth year as a full-time driver at the sport’s highest level.
Growing pains were expected for the brand new team and the driver of the #23 Toyota, despite the fact that they have a technical alliance with the four-car Toyota powerhouse of Joe Gibbs Racing, but some may argue that the have been a bit worse than expected.
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Prior to his 11th place finish at Dover International Speedway in the season’s 13th race, Wallace was one of only four full-time drivers who had not yet scored a top 15 finish. The other three drivers drive for either Rick Ware Racing and StarCom Racing, which isn’t exactly a group in which Wallace wants to be featured regarding any statistical category.
However, Wallace believes that this result is a sign of things to come and that he and the team will continue to improve and run well more often.
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Despite his slow start to the season, the 27-year-old Mobile, Alabama native is only seven spots below the playoff cut line in 23rd place in the point standings, and if he and the #23 team should manage to turn things around, a playoff spot is definitely not out of the picture, even if Wallace isn’t able to achieve his preseason goal of at least two wins.
If things keep going in the right direction, Wallace believes that he can be a force to be reckoned with, even perhaps tough to beat, as the season progresses.
“I believe so,” Wallace told Beyond the Flag after discussing his new partnership with Chilisleep. “Obviously a really good race for us at Dover. Everything was kind of hitting for us on all cylinders there. We obviously want to be better, and we will be as the season progresses. We figured out what it takes to make us a good team and a successful team. So Dover was a good showing of that.”
At Circuit of the Americas, Wallace was involved in a wreck and finished in 39th place, but he was always far more eager to get to the upcoming oval races than the road course races.
“Excited to continue this run that we have going now,” he continued. “I feel like the team, personnel-wise, are all kind of gelling and vibing well together, so [I’m] excited about that. Just gotta keep it going. It’s a long season. You can’t get complacent on one race; you gotta adapt and move on and keep it going.
“COTA and Sonoma are kind of almost back to back, so when the road courses done and out of the way, we’ll focus back on the oval stuff. Really got a lot of good tracks coming up for us.”
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Charlotte Motor Speedway is scheduled to host this Sunday’s race, the longest race of the season. The Coca-Cola 600 is set to be broadcast live on Fox beginning at 6:00 p.m. ET.