The No. 23 team of Bubba Wallace has only made the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs once since its inception in 2021. Since then, the No. 45 car, driven by Tyler Reddick, has been in the top 10 in owner points the previous two seasons, with Reddick winning the regular season championship last Saturday (Aug. 31) night in Darlington, S.C. Being such a high-profile ride with top-tier sponsorship, are there leadership changes with the No. 23 team that 23XI Racing should explore this offseason? This week, Joy Tomlinson and Luken Glover weigh the pros and cons in 2-Headed Monster.
The Foundations for Success Are in Place
No, there shouldn’t be any changes to Wallace’s No. 23 team.
Usually when people start questioning whether changes need to be made to a team, it’s for performance reasons. But that’s not fair or necessarily warranted in this case.
Let’s look at Wallace’s stats over the last 10 races. Since Iowa Speedway, Wallace has earned two top fives and five top 10s. That’s not bad (although it could be better), and had it not been for Harrison Burton’s Hail Mary at Daytona International Speedway or Chase Briscoe’s Southern 500 upset, it likely would have been good enough to get in the playoffs.
Do you know who else has those same number of top fives and top 10s? Chris Buescher. There hasn’t been a chorus of boos, calling for there to be changes to that team, despite Buescher missing a win by inches at Kansas Speedway and a corner at Darlington Raceway in the spring.
Wallace also led 84 laps in the last 10 races, which is more than twice what he earned in the first 16 races, and the team has shown impressive speed with a pole at Darlington and the car to beat at Michigan International Speedway prior to the storms pushing things back a day and completely changing the track.
Currently, he has the same number of top fives and top-10 finishes he had in both 2022 and 2023, so there’s a chance to gain even more. With this type of improvement (providing that he does get more), it doesn’t make much sense to alter anything.
Sure, everyone wants to win, and the No. 23 team certainly is capable of winning. He’s won twice already in his career at Talladega Superspeedway and Kansas. Would a crew chief or pit crew change suddenly bring that about? Not necessarily. With crew chiefs, he would need to readjust and get used to the different style the new leader would have. Wallace has had Bootie Barker since the fall Bristol Motor Speedway race in 2021, and he earned his first win with him.
Why should the team break up what seems to be a stable arrangement?
Now, a change in some of the pit crew members might serve him well, especially if he’s consistently had slower pit stops than some of the other leaders in the race. But that doesn’t mean the benefits would come right away. Besides, it’s the playoffs, and 23XI is probably more focused right now on Reddick getting the resources and information he needs to succeed.
Even though Wallace isn’t in the playoffs, he can still visit victory lane; we’ve seen it in previous years with Buescher and Erik Jones. Heck, Wallace’s first win came as a non-playoff driver. So it’s not impossible.
Wallace has everything he needs now to take the checkered flag, it’s just a matter of putting all the pieces together. He won a pole in the regular season finale at Darlington, so that’s a good start. Unfortunately, he got caught up in an accident late last week that wasn’t his fault. Sometimes the races just don’t go the drivers’ way, and that seems to have happened to Wallace. But a change now could do more harm than good (especially if it’s a different crew chief). Keep things the way they are, for now at least. – Joy Tomlinson
The No. 23 Team Has Reached a Ceiling
Let’s put this into immediate consideration: Reddick and the No. 45 team won two races and the regular season championship. Wallace and the No. 23 team missed entirely.
Granted, if the playoff format was all about points, Wallace would safely be in as he would be 12th in points without the playoffs.
But this system rewards winning, and that is something that Wallace has not done since Kansas in 2022, spelling out his fate this season. That is something that 23XI can’t live with, and it requires changes in both the short and potentially long term.
The speed was undeniable at several races this season. Yet, whether by his own mistake, mistakes by the pit crew, or getting caught up in someone else’s mess, the execution was not there.
Tracks like Texas Motor Speedway, Kansas, Charlotte Motor Speedway and Michigan rose to the top of the list of tracks where Wallace should have been able to compete for the win. In all of those, the execution as the races wore on wasn’t enough.
Other tracks like Bristol, Richmond Raceway and Darlington also saw the No. 23 flex some muscles during the weekend. However, as the races wore on, the car never appeared to keep up with the track, or Wallace would get in positions that put him at risk.
The phrase, “It’s not about where you start, it’s where you finish” has been a tough pill to swallow for Wallace and company. Wallace boasts an average start of 13.3, good enough for 11th among full-time drivers. However, when it comes to average finish, that number tapers off to 15.8. That’s still 13th among full-time drivers, but it digs up a stark reality for the team this year that the team has just not efficiently maximized several races.
Just take a look at the Southern 500. Wallace soared to the pole and immediately made a statement that he was there to win. That motivation carried into the race, where Wallace ran inside the top three for a large chunk of the race. But as the light of day gave way to the cooler night temperatures, Wallace’s car fell off and was too tight the rest of the evening.
He still had a top-10 car, but the top 10 was not going to cut it.
If you have listened to radio communications within the No. 23 team this season, Wallace has experienced several instances where the car is not keeping up with the changing demands of the track. This was exemplified again at Darlington, where his Toyota swayed in the direction of being extremely tight.
Adjustments point to the minds atop the box, such as the crew chief and car chief. For whatever reason, the changes have not been enough to keep Wallace up front throughout the race.
Wallace’s crew chief, Barker, has done a very respectable job of helping Wallace go from a midpack driver to someone who can compete up front in several events. There does come a point though where a partnership reaches its ceiling.
Mark Jackson and the Golden State Warriors. Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers. Kyle Busch and Adam Stevens. These are just a few successful partnerships that eventually required a new direction for both parties. While Barker and Wallace cannot boast resumes like those above, they may have reached a point where the next rung of the ladder cannot be reached.
If that is the case, it doesn’t rest solely on Barker’s shoulders. From the car chief to the competition department of 23XI, there are several people involved in making a well-oiled machine.
The kryptonite for the team as a whole in its young history has been pit road issues. It was so glaring in 2022 that the team made changes to its pit crew lineup, which is not uncommon in the garage. That issue hasn’t been fully resolved, however. The No. 23 crew ranks 15th in crew time average, and the total average stop rank is 22nd. In that sense, the No. 45 pit performance isn’t much better, as the team ranks 21st in total average.
Leaving Wallace to fend for himself on defense while every car behind him came to get tires partway through the last stint was not a recipe for making the playoffs when only a win would do.
Wallace is admittedly hard on himself, probably even too hard. There is only so much pressure a person can put on themselves, and Wallace has certainly grown as a driver. But this is his seventh full-time season in Cup. He has experienced the highs of winning and the lows of not having speed or experiencing terrible fortunes on the track. One playoff appearance in four seasons with a team that is quickly entering the top echelon of Cup teams and has seen its other drivers win, be it Kurt Busch or Reddick, puts the pressure on.
Changes do need to be made within the No. 23 camp. Maybe a fresh look atop the pit box could open the floodgates. Or fine tuning the competition department could be the right ingredient. Overall, 2025 needs to truly be a put up or shut up year for the 30-year-old Wallace. If he experiences a similar season to 2024, his seat gets hotter. – Luken Glover
Joy joined Frontstretch in 2019 as a NASCAR DraftKings writer, expanding to news and iRacing coverage in 2020. She's currently an assistant editor and involved with photos, social media and news editing. A California native, Joy was raised watching motorsports and started watching NASCAR extensively in 2001. She earned her B.A. degree in Liberal Studies at California State University Bakersfield in 2010.
Entering his fifth year with Frontstretch, Luken Glover is the author of The Underdog House, shedding light on the motivation and performance of NASCAR's dark horse teams as they strive to fight to the top. Additionally, Glover reports for the site at various events, and he contributes in the video editing department.
A 2023 graduate of the University of the Cumberlands, Glover is a middle school math and PE teacher, as well as a basketball coach. He is passionate about serving in his church, playing/coaching a wide variety of sports, and researching motorsports history.