Bubba Wallace could have potentially won Sunday at World Wide Technology Raceway, but he also could have ended up destroyed when a restart went haywire due to a speed issue.
In the end, he finished eighth, and while that came with a touch of frustration, it was a victory overall. Wallace and his 23XI Racing team are poised to advance to the second round of the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs after back-to-back top-10 finishes.
“We’re over 50 (points); it’s a great sight to see,” Wallace said. “We had solid execution all day, varied strategies from the entire peloton and my little restart incident. He just got stuck between gears, and that hurt me (Kyle Larson and William Byron) on strategy, so I hate that for all of us involved.
“But we recovered. Looking at the big picture, if you told me we would be leading laps and maybe we would be one of the cars to win today after practice, I would have said, ‘(Heck) no.'” Overall, a solid day for the McDonald’s Toyota Camry team. We just fell short.
The speed problem – he got stuck on the restart on Lap 156 – happened while Wallace was in the lead. He was in the hallway outside when it happened, causing the line to pile up behind him, but fortunately didn’t cause a fall. However, he ceded control of the race to Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin.
“I did it on the restart before and everything was fine,” Wallace said. “I have to go back and study how to do better, but I hate it because I don’t know if it did any damage (to Larson), but we were strong cars. It just wasn’t necessary.”
A caution on the same lap as the restart and his crash brought Wallace and a few others to pit road. The strategy could have worked for this group to return to the top of the standings, given the fuel consumption, but an additional caution in the afternoon leveled the field. Wallace never led the race again.
“Oh, for sure (the equipment issue) definitely changed things because we were there just for the fuel, and I think we would be fine if the race went ahead,” he said. “But that last caution (with 33 laps to go) was kind of the kicker, so there are things to consider.
“Being frustrated knowing we could have won is good because I didn’t have that feeling yesterday. Overall, I’m happy for our team.”
Wallace led 73 laps, the second most of any driver, and won the second stage. In two playoff races, Wallace and his team have collected 85 points and are fourth on the provisional playoff grid with one race remaining in the round.
