BROOKLYN, Mich: Bubba Wallace capitalized on a strong weekend with his 23XI Racing team with a runner-up finish in Sunday’s FireKeepers Casino 400 at Michigan International Speedway.
But following his fourth top-five finish of the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series, Wallace delivered an emotional post-race interview where he said he “failed everybody” as Stewart-Haas Racing’s Kevin Harvick won the race and left just one position open in the Playoff grid with just three races remaining in the regular season.
“Just replaying everything I could have done,” said Wallace fighting back the tears. “Took the top there on the restart. Thought I could hang with the 4 (Harvick), and just got to racing the 5 (Kyle Larson) and the 22 (Joey Logano).”
Despite the emotion pouring from his face, it was obvious that Wallace appeared frustrated with his battle with Logano.
“And 22 did a good job of getting another Ford contract, helping a Ford win.”
Putting his frustration of the battle aside, Wallace added, “Just all in all an incredible weekend. Appreciate my team. Wished we could have got Toyota in the victory lane. Wish we got McDonald’s back in victory lane. She was fast all week, man.
“Just I’ll wear this one on my heart for a while. I failed everybody.”
When asked what Wallace could have done to contend for his second career NASCAR Cup Series victory, Wallace believed he would have chosen a different lane for the restart that likely would have given him the opportunity to duke it out with Harvick on his own – rather than find himself in a quarrel of a mess with Larson and Logano.
“Got clear of the 5 (Larson) sooner,” Wallace explained of a do-over. “He was doing his part putting it on my quarter there, keeping me tight. And just the side-by-side here allows the 4 to get away.
“Could have taken the top, pushed the 4 (Harvick), and then I could have been the 5 (Larson) in that scenario, right? Just hate it. Hate it for our team. It sucks.”
After earning his first career Cup Series pole on Saturday afternoon, Wallace led the field through the race’s opening 20 laps at the two-mile oval when the yellow flag flew for the competition caution.
With a variety of teams on different strategies, Wallace lost the team and his pace at the front of the field but returned to his early race form nearing the end of Stage 3 when it counted most.
Following a restart for an incident between Ross Chastain and Christopher Bell, Wallace had hoped to use the restart to his advantage but instead of challenging Harvick for the race lead, he found himself in a horrendous battle with Joey Logano that lasted for nearly a dozen laps before being able to finally clear the Team Penske driver inside the final 15 laps of the race.
At one point in the race, Harvick had hustled to more than a four-second lead with Wallace taking a nice chunk out of that deficit at the checkered flag finishing 2.903 seconds behind and earning their second-runner up finish of the year.
Michigan also delivered his third top-five in the last four races and fourth top-10 in a row, a career high.
Surrounded by positive reinforcements from crew chief Bootie Barker and co-team owner Denny Hamlin, Wallace was drowned in looking at the negative factors of the race – something the six-time Truck Series winner knows he has to try and overcome.
“Just great job all weekend,” said Wallace. “It is a hell of a job for our team. There’s a lot of positives in this, but I’m a person that looks at the negatives more than the positives. I need to change that, but I want to win so bad, and this was the best opportunity.”
But was Michigan his best opportunity? Perhaps maybe not.
In three short weeks, the Cup Series invades Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway for the regular season finale Coke Zero Sugar 400 on August 27th.
The “World Center of Racing” has proven to be a model racetrack for the 28-year-old, where he has finished second in the last two races at the 2.5-mile superspeedway, including February’s Daytona 500.
And not to forget albeit a rain-shortened race, the superspeedway of Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway in 2021 delivered Wallace and 23XI Racing their first win NASCAR Cup Series triumph in October 2021.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
