A 12th-place finish in the regular season finale at Daytona International Speedway proved adequate enough for Bubba Wallace to lock his spot into the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs. At times throughout the night, Wallace competed inside the top 10, but the No. 23 had nowhere to go to advance his position in overtime.
That didn’t matter, however, as Wallace knew he was in as long as there was no new winner.
“That’s the first time I’ve lifted before the line at a speedway race,” Wallace said with a smile. “I’d seen the 17 won and I’m like ‘I’m done, I’m out.'”
Early in the race, Ty Gibbs closed in on the cut line after scoring points in stage one. The rookie proved a real threat in stage two, at times equal or even ahead of Wallace. All that changed when Gibbs’ No. 54 slid sideways into Ryan Blaney in turn 3, triggering the Big One and taking Gibbs out of the race.
After an update from his team, Wallace knew he was all good as long as no new winners emerged.
“I’m not showing much emotion. I am mentally drained. This week was probably the hardest week I’ve had in a long time,” Wallace shared. “I was throwing myself through the ringer mentally.”
Wallace, who typically contends at the super speedways, was not pleased with his race car.
“I didn’t like my car from the start of the race. Something was off. We didn’t have the 23 speed that we usually do when we come here. We survived. That’s what we wanted to do. We kind of knew where we were at, we just didn’t get a new winner.”
Wallace enters the playoffs as the 16th and final seed. He will begin his first ever quest for a championship at Darlington Raceway on Sunday, Sept. 3 in the Cook Out Southern 500, which will air at 6 p.m. ET on USA Network.
About the author
Caleb began sports writing in 2023 with The Liberty Champion, where he officially covered his first NASCAR race at Richmond in the spring. While there, Caleb met some of the guys from Frontstretch, and he joined the video editing team after graduating from Liberty University with degrees in Strategic Communications and Sports Journalism. Caleb currently work full-time as a Multi-Media Journalist with LEX 18 News in Lexington, Kentucky and contributes to Frontstretch with writing and video editing. He's also behind-the-scenes or on camera for the Happy Hour Podcast, live every Tuesday night at 7:30!
A daily email update (Monday through Friday) providing racing news, commentary, features, and information from Frontstretch.com
We hate spam. Your email address will not be sold or shared with anyone else.