NASCAR: Bubba Wallace crashed before the race even started
By Asher Fair
Bubba Wallace took an embarrassing tumble at Circuit of the Americas even before taking part in a NASCAR race weekend he’d like to forget.
Bubba Wallace’s weekend at Circuit of the Americas definitely won’t go down as one of the most memorable weekends of his NASCAR career.
It started off with a disappointing 28th place finish in the Xfinity Series race, when he drove Joe Gibbs Racing’s “star car”, the #18 Toyota. He became the fourth driver to drive the car in 2022.
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While a transmission issue derailed his shot at a decent result, he is set to get another chance behind the wheel of the car in August at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.
Then in the Cup Series race, a loose left rear wheel came off of the 23XI Racing driver’s #23 Toyota, effectively guaranteeing a four-week suspension for crew chief Bootie Barker and two pit crew members. As a result, Wallace finished in 38th place and dropped from 17th to 20th in the point standings.
But the misfortune really started during Friday’s track walk with an incident that basically served as an indication of what the race weekend had in store for him.
Wallace decided to take a skateboard along during his track walk around the 20-turn, 3.427-mile (5.515-kilometer) road course in Austin, Texas.
It didn’t end well.
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But give credit to the 28-year-old Mobile, Alabama native, who immediately bounced right back up and continued on with the track walk despite the obvious embarrassment of the moment.
Embarrassment aside, Wallace has struggled in the first season of the Gen 7 car, which is also his first season with a teammate in five years of full-time Cup Series competition.
Aside from his second career runner-up finish in the Daytona 500 to open up the year, he has finished no higher than 13th place through six races. He still has just one top 10 finish in a non-superspeedway race since August 2020, and that came in a fuel mileage race at Pocono Raceway.
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Meanwhile, Kurt Busch, who is in his first year with 23XI Racing after they expanded from one car to two cars before the 2022 season, has found success with the Denny Hamlin and Michael Jordan-owned team, sitting in 13th place in the standings with the fifth best average finish (13.33) in the series thanks to two top five finishes and an additional top eight result.