Bubba Wallace does not believe he did anything wrong at Martinsville Speedway that resulted in his 23XI Racing team being penalized with two others for race manipulation.
“We can all agree to disagree,” Wallace said Saturday at Phoenix Raceway. “It is what it is. We’re here at Phoenix.”
Wallace slowed on the final lap of the elimination race and was passed by Toyota teammate Christopher Bell going into Turn 3. Both drivers were running one lap down, but Bell needed the position from Wallace because it put him into a tiebreaker with fellow championship contender Wiliam Byron. Bell had the tiebreaker on Byron to advance.
But NASCAR penalized Bell for riding the wall in the final corners and it’s Byron who is racing for a championship. Wallace was fined $100,000 and docked 50 points. His team was also fined $100,000 and docked 50 points while his spotter (Freddie Kraft), crew chief (Bootie Barker), and a team executive (Dave Rogers) are suspended from this weekend’s events.
Wallace said he was unaware of the situation unfolding around him last weekend. Denny Hamlin, Wallace’s co-owner, also denied his driver did anything wrong and said a look at the right rear tire post-race showed it had gone bald.
“We were running our own race and started to bleed there really hard,” Wallace said. “I tried to hold off the [No.] 5 from getting to the next lapped car and just burnt my [expletive] up, so a product of racing, and the frustrating part is we showed up there in the spring with a car capable of winning and showed back in the fall, and we’re a nobody. That’s super frustrating.
“It’s been a really frustrating week.”
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A week that is capped off in bittersweet fashion…
Barker is not only sitting at home but also doing so to end his tenure as Wallace’s crew chief. He is moving to an internal role with the organization next season.
“Bootie’s last race with the [No.] 23 group has to be tarnished by that,” Wallace said. “Bootie has meant a lot to me in the short amount of time I’ve gotten to be with him [over] the last three years. He’s become one of my best friends, and I told him that when we made the decision to go a different direction. I said I don’t throw out the best friend term very easily, so to see him on the sidelines and not going to our last race – win, lose, or draw, it doesn’t matter – he’s not here in the trenches with us, and that [irritates me] for sure.
“But [life] goes on. Time doesn’t wait for you; it keeps going. We’re here. I feel like we’ve got a really good Star Wars/Columbia Toyota Camry. We just have to make it all happen tomorrow.”
23XI Racing chose not to appeal the penalty. Wallace’s teammate, Tyler Reddick, is racing for the Cup Series championship Sunday afternoon and the organization wanted to focus its time and effort on his car.
“Tyler and the [No.] 45 group have worked their [rears] off to put themselves in a spot to go for a championship,” Wallace said. “For us to make the decision not to appeal, I didn’t agree with that, but I understood once they broke it down. We have to have all of our eggs in the same basket and time invested in the right things and at the right time. The right time is focusing on the championship for the [No.] 45 and bringing home 23XI their first championship.
“As soon as that was communicated, it was easy to let your guard down and appreciate that and support the team’s decision because, at the end of the day, that’s the most important thing. We’ll continue to go on and race and be competitive and do everything we can.”