Bubba Wallace had a little help Sunday afternoon piloting his 23XI Racing Toyota around Richmond Raceway, which is why he wanted much more than the 12th-place finish he earned.
“Once I get past the frustration, I know it was a really good day for us,” Wallace said. “Emotional day.”
Longtime friend and spotter Freddie Kraft lost his father, Tommy Kraft, Saturday morning and was not in Richmond for the weekend.
Before climbing into his car, Wallace and the No. 23 team removed his name from above the driver’s side door. Using tape, Wallace replaced his name with “Tommy Kraft.” After the race, Wallace got emotional all over again when he happened to see the door again when climbing out.
“[We were] racing with a lot there,” Wallace said. “He (Tommy) was driving the [expletive] out of it. I told him at the start of the race I’m just going to sit back and let him wheel it and man, we were awesome.”
Wallace led twice for 80 laps at Richmond. The time he spent at the front was not only the most he has done at Richmond (previously having led one lap in 10 starts), but it was the most laps Wallace has led in a single NASCAR Cup Series race in his career.
The race turned for the No. 23 on lap 175, though, when he made a green flag pit stop. Wallace was leading at the time he came to pit road, and the pit stop was hindered when the jack came down while the team was changing tires on the right side of the car, costing track position.
“Just had a hiccup on a pit stop but just never rebounded,” Wallace said. “The balance went away. Man, it’s just hard. This place is tough finding the right line and the right balance, and we just fell off of it.
“One of them here had the worst restart – [Kevin] Harvick – and held us up, unfortunately. It is what it is. We finished 12th. All in all, a good points day. I don’t know where we’re at; I know we put a pretty good gap [on the cutline], I’m assuming, so it’s a good day.”
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Wallace finished second in the first stage. After the slow pit stop, he finished fourth in the second. Although he was still a top-10 car, it was hard to regain the lost track position.
“It’s not really hard to pass; I was getting passed a lot,” he chuckled about the team’s change in fortune. “It’s just it gets harder. We’re at the Cup level. We’ve got multimillion dollars — billion dollars — all throughout this garage, and a lot of smart people, so we can get our setups within a very small window where that’s pretty good, and that’s when it gets hard.
“We fell out of that window and made it easier for people to get by us and lose that track position. When you’re falling and bleeding, you’re trying to do everything you can and it’s just tough.
“It was a good day for McDonald’s Toyota, the No. 23 car. I thought it was a good day for the team, I’m not sure what happened to the No. 45 but all in all, we’ll take it.”
Wallace entered the weekend with a 26-point advantage on the playoff grid cutline. By earning 41 points Sunday, his advantage grew to 54.
He still doesn’t feel comfortable as the regular season moves toward a conclusion, however.
“I’m glad a car in front of us won,” he said. “I think I watched who’s leading at that point more than what we’re doing. Congrats to [Chris Buescher]. We didn’t lose a spot.
“We keep saying it — Bootie [Barker] will keep saying it — you keep throwing your name in the hat, our time will come. Obviously we know Michigan is next week, so just have to learn from this one and build off of it and go into there.”