Bubba Wallace, piloting the “worst-driving car we had this year”, finished second at New Hampshire.
The Mobile, Alabama-native was very much a factor in the fight for victory in Sunday’s Dollar Tree 301 at the 1.058-mile short track in Loudon, New Hampshire, chasing down race-leader and eventual winner Ryan Blaney in the closing laps, and making his best friend sweat a little bit.
Piloting the No. 23 Cincoro Tequila Toyota Camry XSE, Wallace came up just short of collecting his first NASCAR Cup Series victory of the season, and his first win since last Summer’s Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS).
“That’s the thing I kind of hate about this place. Last time we ran good, one of the worst driving cars we ever started,” Wallace said. “We had the worst driving car [I’ve had] this year and I finished second. Just been saying it all week long, I think I finally know, throw out the field I’m chasing – which is hard to do as a race car driver, searching for the right front, it’s not really ever there.”
Wallace was able to make quite a bit of headway over the course of the final green-flag run, which lasted more than 60 laps. As Blaney started to work his way through lapped traffic, that gave the 23XI Racing driver a chance to close the gap down under one second.
“We fought, man. Had a nice day just by myself, regrouping. Got the head right. I knew I had to fight all day. That’s what it takes. Where it starts is with this No. 23 team. Man, they pushed me to the absolute best. I fail them a lot, but they stick behind me. It’s super cool. I appreciate that.”
The pivotal moment in deciding the race’s winner came with five laps to go, when Wallace, trailing closely behind Blaney, locked up his tires driving into Turn 3, costing him a significant chunk of time and allowing the No. 12 to ride off into the sunset.
“It did [seal my fate],” Wallace said. “I picked up a big vibration on the left front. That was kind of it so… made our great day go to crap and salvaging what we had.”
The runner-up result at New Hampshire marks the fourth top-five of the year, the last of which was a runner-up at Naval Base Coronado on Father’s Day Weekend. It’s also the first top five Wallace has secured on a short track since Martinsville in the Spring of 2025.
Probably the more important part of the equation, though, is that Wallace (although not mathematically locked into The Chase) is more than likely going to be competing in the 10-race post-season, barring some complicated, multi-faceted disaster next Saturday at Daytona.
All Wallace would have to do to lock his 23XI Racing team into The Chase is finish 35th or better or score a single stage point. Should Wallace collect more than one point at Daytona, he’ll be in championship contention… and even if he didn’t, Ryan Preece would have to win, and both Austin Cindric and Shane Van Gisbergen would have to have strong evenings.
Momentum, though, that’s definitely on Wallace’s side heading into the tail end of the year, even if he’s not satisfied with a runner-up result at New Hampshire.
