Bubba Wallace and his 23XI Racing team are just about where he’d hoped they’d be as the season has progressed. In fact, it was just yesterday that Wallace reflected as much with 23XI Racing competition director Dave Rogers.
“I said, about midway through the season, we were probably an eighth to 12th place car, and we’re sitting ninth in the points right now,” Wallace said at Talladega Superspeedway. “We’re right on the cusp of that.”
That cusp is also the final transfer spot into the next round of the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs. Wallace is two points below the cutline going into Sunday’s race, the second event in the second round.
“I think having an understanding that, usually when the playoffs start, there’s going to be at least two or three playoff cars that take care of themselves, whether that be failures, crashes, penalties – whatever that may be,” Wallace said. “Try not to be one of those. You go out and make sure you have a good day, execute solid, pit crew has a good day, crew chief, strategist, they execute solid. If that recipe is a 20th-place — OK, you missed it. But when you put yourself in a hole, it’s tough. That’s where the mistakes happen.
“I think we’re very capable of getting to the Round of 8. I look at the third round – those are really good racetracks. Going off what I watched last year in Homestead, the car looked really, really fast, so I’m excited to get there. Obviously (there’s) Vegas and Martinsville, so I think if we can just fight our (butts) off these next two weeks, it will be interesting to see what the No. 23 can do for the remainder of the playoffs.”
The boxes keep getting checked for Wallace. Although he hasn’t won a race this season, he earned a postseason berth for the first time. An average finish of 17.6 in the first three races was enough to survive and advance into the next round.
Aside from trying to win, Wallace’s mindset and goal of wanting more in the playoffs hasn’t changed. Advancing is advancing, no matter how it happens, and Wallace is focused on doing so.
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Texas Motor Speedway, the first race of the second round, was the “cleanest and greenest” of the season for everyone on the No. 23 team. Wallace started from the pole and led a race-high 111 laps, but only ended up with a disappointing third-place finish after leading on the overtime restart and being overtaken by William Byron
“When you’re in the top three every week, they say your win is bound to come,” said Wallace. “I do believe that. We just have to keep putting our name in the hat and keep doing what we know we are capable of doing.”
Bootie Barker, Wallace’s crew chief, has preached to his driver what a good team the No. 23 group is. Wallace has always believed as much, but there have been too many times when the team hasn’t been able to put together a complete race.
“I guess if you divide it between three pieces of the pie – driver, crew chief, pit crew – I feel like a lot of times, we’re showing up with two out of the three slices,” Wallace said. “We never had all three. We started to do that more and more and look at what we’re doing. It’s not from us trying harder or whatever; it’s just show up and bring our A-game, and we’ll take what we can get.”
The playoff newcomer admitted that understanding the mindset and appreciating it are two different things. When that happens, it can go a long way for a race team.
“It helps team morale,” Wallace said. “When you fight as one team – this sounds very bland – but you fight as one team, and you show up to the racetrack, and you’re ready to battle for whatever circumstances come your way — that is what makes us so good. We feel like we can overcome anything as long as we don’t take ourselves out. The races can get super long, and you can dial yourself right out, but if you have the right people in the right place to help you out, it makes that transition easy.”