NASCAR: The precursor to Bubba Wallace’s terrible weekend

Bubba Wallace’s weekend at Circuit of the Americas got off to a rough start, and things only got worse during his two NASCAR race starts.

Bubba Wallace competed in both the NASCAR Xfinity Series race and the Cup Series race at Circuit of the Americas this past weekend.

Wallace, who had made just one start in the Xfinity Series since 2017 prior to the weekend, had the opportunity to compete for Joe Gibbs Racing behind the wheel of the “star car”, the #18 Toyota, on Saturday afternoon.

Unfortunately for him, a transmission issue knocked him out of contention for a decent result. He finished in 28th place, though he is set to get another shot behind the wheel of the #18 Toyota in the series at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course in August.

But that 28th place finish may very well have been the highlight of his weekend.

He finished in 38th place in Sunday afternoon’s Cup Series race after a loose left wheel fell off of his #23 Toyota, resulting in four-race suspensions for crew chief Bootie Barker and crew members Caleb Dirks and Adam Riley.

The poor result dropped the 23XI Racing driver from 17th to 20th place in the point standings, and it leaves him still seeking his first top 12 finish since his runner-up result to open up the season in the Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway in February.

But based on what happened before the race weekend officially got underway, we should’ve seen this coming.

During Friday’s track walk of the 20-turn, 3.427-mile (5.515-kilometer) road course in Austin, Texas, Wallace took along his skateboard.

Little did he know at the time that what happened next would basically be a precursor to how his weekend would go.

Wallace is set to try to bounce back in this weekend’s race at Richmond Raceway, where he has an average finish of 25.0 in seven career starts. This race, the Toyota Owners 400, is set to be broadcast live on Fox beginning at 3:30 p.m. ET on Sunday, April 3. If you have not started your free trial of FuboTV, do so now and don’t miss a moment of the action!