Bubba Wallace was finally able to put a race together. In the first year with his new team 23XI Racing co-owned by Denny Hamlin and NBA legend Michael Jordan the team had yet to finish higher than 11th, that coming at Dover.
Sunday Wallace and the team finished fifth at Pocono Raceway, a huge accomplishment for a first-year organization.
“It’s big,” Wallace said. “A lot of confidence for myself which is huge.”
The second race of a weekend doubleheader turned into a fuel mileage affair with strategies all over the place. Some teams rolled the dice and lost, others, like 23XI won. And Wallace was quick to acknowledge that team.
“I appreciate Wheels (Mike Wheeler, crew chief), J.R. (Houston, engineer), Freddie (Kraft, spotter), telling me what to do – 80% there, 60% here, the whole time,” he said. “It got so annoying, but it worked out. That’s what it takes. It takes a team effort to pull off this.”
“We knew that we had the speed. Bossman was here – MJ (Michael Jordan) was here. We had the whole staff out, so it was a good day. Good weekend.”
Wallace said it was the team that coached him in the closing laps and led to the team’s best finish of the season.
“Freddie (Kraft, spotter), Wheels (Mike Wheeler, crew chief), J.R. (Houston, engineer). They were just telling me 80% here, match lap times with the other guys,” he said. “I knew we were in a worse position than the 18 (Kyle Busch), so we were just racing our race and I was doing as best as I could.”
After the first top five of the season however, Wallace wants more.
“We wanted the Playoffs when we started the season,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do. We know that we are in a hole, but it’s finishes like that, that we have to capitalize on the speed in our cars. Today shows what we can do. We’ve got to keep up the momentum.”
Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.
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