With playoffs at stake, Bubba Wallace faces down Darlington opportunity

Both of 23XI Racing’s full-time drivers will be pushing for playoff goals this weekend — one at the top end of the provisional bracket and the other striving to shoehorn his way into the 16-driver field from just outside it. That situation wasn’t lost on Bubba Wallace, who noted post-race last weekend the gulf between himself on the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs bubble and teammate Tyler Reddick and his quest for the Regular Season Championship.

Wallace called that deviation “unacceptable” after he exited his No. 23 Toyota, leaving Daytona International Raceway with a 21-point deficit to make up in this weekend’s regular-season finale while long shot Harrison Burton snapped up a precious postseason bid with his first Cup Series win.

Darlington Raceway will be the battleground that decides the postseason fate of several hopeful drivers including Wallace, who aims to clear the playoff hurdle for the second consecutive year. Sunday’s event is an all-time classic, the Cook Out Southern 500 (6 p.m. ET, USA, NBC Sports App, MRN, SiriusXM) — long one of the sport’s most grueling races at a track that has a tendency to bite.

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RFK Racing’s Chris Buescher, for now, is the last driver in the field, maintaining that 21-point edge over Wallace for a playoff berth, with Trackhouse Racing’s Ross Chastain just 27 points back of the elimination line. Wallace’s performance has been solid in recent weeks, but a postseason-clinching win so far has been elusive. Reddick, however, has been lights-out save for a Daytona mishap, rocketing to the Cup Series points lead on the strength of remarkable consistency and a Michigan victory a week and a half ago in 23XI’s No. 45 Toyota.

“They were just able to execute and be there for the end of races as to where, we were either caught up in somebody else’s mess or something would go south and we didn’t have an opportunity to better ourselves,” said Wallace, who has top-10 finishes in four of the last five races. “So I look at the opportunity this weekend, looking at how fast we were in the spring, the 45 obviously (was a) winning car, and then we were top 10 kind of all day. We’ve worked on a lot of stuff this week in the sim to be better, and I’m excited just to show up and basically, I need to portray the best race that I’ve ever had in my career to make the playoffs. And I don’t say that from a desperation mode. I say it as I’m confident in our team and our ability, as long as all the outside factors execute — an example, pit crew and strategy — then there’s no reason why we can’t be in Victory Lane at Darlington on Sunday. So that’s what we need to focus on, and that’s where we’re at.”

Both 23XI Racing drivers are heading to a track with positive recent indicators. Reddick contended for the victory there in May, and Wallace has four straight top-10 results at the South Carolina oval. The disparity that Wallace pointed out post-race at Daytona, Reddick said, may not provide a full picture of how their performance has aligned. Reddick said their ongoing dialogue and feedback on a given race weekend has built up a level of mutual trust, and he specifically cited Wallace’s help as one of the keys to his Michigan win earlier this month.

While Reddick is riding some recent highs, he said those waves favored Wallace earlier in the year.

“Something that I feel like is a little bit lost in all this is, I feel like the first half of the regular season, the 23 was by far just doing a better job, week in and week out,” Reddick told NASCAR.com. “They were outperforming us, they were faster in qualifying, better in practice, starting their race off stronger than we were. It’s just they’ve had some things come their way, and I feel like it’s just what happens from time to time. I’ve experienced it myself. When just about the time things are going right, they start to go wrong again. It’s just how it can be sometimes, how this sport can be. The team, everyone’s got to be jelling perfectly. It’s so easy for that to get a little bit out of sync, and then it’s easy for a day to get away.

“So yeah, honestly, I hate it for him. Again, like I said, I feel like everywhere we went till we got to the midsummer stretch around Charlotte, the 600 or whatever, I mean, damn. Even Charlotte, he was really strong in Charlotte. I mean, just every weekend he was out-qualifying us, faster in practice, driving the race car better than I was. Just, things would go south. It’s just, it’s how racing can be sometimes.”

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As far as the pressure goes, Wallace said it’s been relative in comparison to his first venture into playoff territory.

“I think from a bigger picture, I’m stressed about being winless in damn near two seasons,” Wallace says. “I think that’s just a general overview, but I think in the situation we’re at now compared to, let’s say this was Daytona last year or Bristol the (elimination) race, I have no stress compared to those last year, and I think that’s for the better. It’s allowing me to focus on the important things and the right things and everything we need to do to succeed. I mean, I’m not saying that it’s not there. Obviously you get down to crunch time and say we have a great first, second stage, and things start to get tighter, you have to keep the emotions in check. And so I think I’ve learned that over the last couple years is the races aren’t over until the checkered flag falls, so whatever happens and all four corners on the car are still intact and you’re capable of running fast laps, you have to — no matter how tough the going gets — you’ve got to keep pushing. So stress right now, I feel good.”

Wallace has already found some Darlington motivation from high places. He told the Dale Jr. Download this week that team co-owner and NBA legend Michael Jordan had texted him the Monday after Daytona with a message that improved his mood: “Things you want more cost more.”

The words, Wallace said, gave him a measure of perspective and a level of encouragement to put in the hard work at one of NASCAR’s most treacherous tracks.

“He understands the situation that we’re in, and he can see everybody fighting hard and doing what we need to do,” Wallace says. “I mean, Daytona, our goal was to go in there and make up ground to the 17 (Buescher) and the 1 (Chastain). We did that for the 1; the 17 got some pretty good stage points there, especially at Stage 2. But we did what we were supposed to do, we just had an unexpected new winner. I guess you can’t say unexpected, because it is Daytona, so you’ve got to kind of accept anything. But I think we did what we were supposed to do. We built a gap. If there wasn’t a new winner, then yeah. Where we fell short of is that we weren’t the new winner. So that’s what I was frustrated about the most. Just wasn’t able to work that out in our favor, but MJ is usually texting me right after every race with, ‘good job,’ or whatever it may be. So he’s very much involved.”