Getty Bubba Wallace and Denny Hamlin before qualifying at Darlington.
Bubba Wallace finds himself right in the middle of the battle for the final NASCAR Cup Series playoff spot with just five regular-season races remaining. Since finishing 34th at the June 23 New Hampshire race, the No. 23 team has recorded a pair of top 10s, including a seventh at Nashville and a 10th at Pocono, sandwiching a 13th place in the streets of Chicago.
Despite those solid results, 23XI Racing co-owner Denny Hamlin offered an interesting response when asked on the July 15 episode of his “Actions Detrimental” podcast what would be discussed in the competition meeting following the most recent race at the Tricky Triangle.
“While it was a good points day for the 23, they’re still lacking pace,” Hamlin candidly admitted. “I don’t know where that pace is. It’s just — it’s head-scratching a little bit that they just don’t have the pace that it seems like the other JGR or 2311 Toyotas have.
“But they’re finishing to their best ability, which that’s really good. So they’re executing well, which that’s half the battle. The speed stuff we can figure out and Bubba can figure out and the team can figure that out. So they’re at least keeping themselves in the game for when they do figure that out.”
Hamlin Addresses Bubba Wallace Penalty and Not Appealing
Later in the podcast after discussing a variety of other topics, Hamlin talked about the $50,000 fine Wallace received from NASCAR on June 10 for his post-race contact with race-winner Alex Bowman on the cool-down lap in Chicago.
“I think that NASCAR made probably the only call they could,” he said. “They were under again — NASCAR really reacts to whatever people say on social media a lot. They do.
“And so when this was under a microscope and again, I firmly believe it, he got fined because it was on TV and it was the race winner. Had this been — we had to use somebody’s, Justin Haley’s in-car camera to see Chase (Elliott) and Daniel Suarez going at it, that was off-camera. Like that was something that came later, right? And so, yeah, they bumped each other.
Bubba Wallace has been fined $50,000 for this post-race incident with Alex Bowman.
“It wasn’t hard, but still it’s these things happen on a weekly basis. And so it just happened to be Alex, showing them right there on live TV. Here comes Bubba out of the blue and he punches them up in the wall.”
Closing the conversation on the Wallace penalty, podcast co-host Jared Allen asked why there won’t be an appeal from the organization.
“Why drag this on?” Hamlin answered. “It’s let it go. You know, you learn from the mistake and it was a mistake. You shouldn’t have done it. And you just move on.”
Wallace in Similar Position Last Year
A year ago, Wallace found himself in a similar position battling for one of the final playoff spots. He put together a steady run of top-15 finishes through the summer months and made it into the postseason for the first time in his Cup career.
This year, the 30-year-old driver is hoping to repeat that level of consistency in the coming weeks and once again earn a berth in the playoffs. He also understands that a trip to Victory Lane, which he hasn’t experienced in 65 races, would automatically garner an invite.
He snaps a 110-race winless streak at Darlington. Brad Keselowski gets it done for Ford’s first victory of 2024.
And in a year where six other drivers have snapped long winless streaks, including three longer than Wallace’s, including Brad Keselowski (110), Austin Cindric (85), and Alex Bowman (80), it just might be a real possibility — especially if they can find that pace.