By Seth Eggert, Associate Editor
With the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs on the horizon, the name of the game for Bubba Wallace is points. Although he didn’t capitalize on the points in The Great American Getaway 400 at Pocono Raceway, a top-10 finish and misfortune for others put the 23XI Racing driver in striking distance of the cutline.
Wallace spent much of the first two stages of the 400-mile race at ‘The Tricky Triangle’ outside of the top-20. Late in the second stage he found a rhythm in his No. 23 Leidos Toyota Camry XSE and started moving forward. He finished Stage 2 inside the top-20.
While Wallace didn’t score stage points, two of the drivers he’s battling for a spot in the playoffs encountered trouble. Ross Chastain’s No. 1 Busch Light Peach Chevrolet Camaro SS broke loose in Turn 3 and backed into the wall on Lap 52. With no stage points earned in Stage 1, Chastain ended the race in 36th with just one point.
The final caution of the race, which put Wallace in position to move into the top-10 saw Ty Gibbs’ engine fail. The No. 54 Monster Energy Toyota also didn’t earn any Stage points due to the strategy the Joe Gibbs Racing driver was on. He ended the race in 27th with 10 points.
Wallace got up to seventh at one point but realized in a battle with Brad Keselowski that he had to let the No. 6 Ford Mustang Dark Horse go or risk crashing both cars. The Mobile, AL native faded back to 10th when the checkered flag finally waved. With five races left until the start of the 2024 Cup Series Playoffs, Wallace narrowed the margin to the cutline down to 27-points after Pocono compared to the 45 after the Chicago Street Course.
“It’s about points, so we didn’t capitalize on points, but the 1 had a bad day, the 54 had a bad day,” Wallace observed. “It was a nice rebound. Usually, it’s the opposite. We start really good and end up fading and giving up a lot track position. Here, we were able to call a good strategy and hang on. We just didn’t have the car.
“The 6 drove it down into (turn) one and I was going to race the heck out of him, and I realized I was going to crash, and he was going to keep going. It’s pretty eye-opening of how far we’re off. Going to have a good debrief tomorrow. All in all, I was trying to have fun the first stages, that’s what I said I was going to do. Was trying my butt off and here we are.”
The dramatic rebound for Wallace saw him fighting to remain on the lead lap in Stage 1 after an early pit stop. The 30-year-old gained 30 spots on track, via speed, strategy, and avoiding the chaos throughout the race.
The 10th-place finish was the seventh top-10 for Wallace this season. It was also the 39th top-10 finish of his Cup Series career and his 30th with 23XI. Wallace has quadrupled his top-10 total since joining the team co-owned by Denny Hamlin and Michael Jordan.
The top-10 finish kept Wallace 15th in the points standings, 17th on the Playoff Grid. He is 200-points behind leader Chase Elliott. Wallace is 67-points behind Gibbs, 44 behind Chris Buescher, and 27 behind Chastain, three of the four drivers currently in the playoffs without a victory this season.
Next for Wallace is the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. In three starts at the iconic 2.5-mile oval, he has one top-five and two top-10 finishes. Wallace’s best finish was third in 2019.
The Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway is scheduled for Sunday, July 21 at 2:30 p.m. ET on NBC. The race will also be broadcast on both the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Radio Network and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.