23XI Racing's Bubba Wallace ended his two-race streak of finishes of 34th or worse with a respectable 11th place run in Sunday's Food City 500 NASCAR Cup Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Wallace, who started the year as the only driver without a finish of lower than 11th through the first five races, had tumbled from second in the point standings into a four-way tie for eighth place following his poor results at Darlington Raceway and Martinsville Speedway.
Due to the tiebreaker, he was classified as the lowest driver involved in that tie and officially scored 11th in the standings heading into Bristol.
Wallace moved his way back into eighth in the standings with his Bristol performance, but he lost his series lead in stage points in the process.
Bubba Wallace drops out of NASCAR stage points lead
Entering this 505-lap race around the four-turn, 0.533-mile (0.858-kilometer) high-banked Bristol, Tennessee oval, Wallace led the series with 60 stage points, even after scoring none at Martinsville.
He placed ninth in both stage one and stage two on Sunday to score four total stage points, but it wasn't enough to retain the lead.
Team Penske's Ryan Blaney, who entered the race third in stage points behind Wallace and 23XI Racing's Tyler Reddick, scored 17 total stage points at the "Last Great Colosseum", including eight with a third place finish in stage one and nine with a runner-up finish in stage two.
Additionally, Hendrick Motorsports' Kyle Larson won both stage one and stage two to collect the maximum possible total of 20 stage points, moving him into a second place tie with Wallace in the category.
Wallace is still second in the series in that 27.12% of his total points have been scored via stage points. The only driver higher than the driver of the No. 23 Toyota in this category is Team Penske's Austin Cindric, who finds himself five points below the playoff cut line. Wallace is 60 points ahead of the cutoff.
Kansas Speedway, where Wallace is a former winner, is set to host this Sunday's AdventHealth 400, with live coverage set to begin at 2:00 p.m. ET on Fox. Begin a free trial of FuboTV and catch all of the action!
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