TALLADEGA, Ala: Bubba Wallace had one of the fastest cars in Sunday’s GEICO 500 at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway and when the white flag waved that speed appeared that it would be carrying the 23XI Racing driver to his third career NASCAR Cup Series win.
Then he wrecked. And the race was over.
Wallace’s No. 23 Columbia Toyota Camry led six times during the race for a second-race high of 35 laps but after surviving the first overtime attempt for a crash involving Noah Gragson and Ross Chastain, Wallace knew the intensity was further building and he had to be ready to capitalize on any opportunity to drive to Victory Lane.
On the second NASCAR overtime, Wallace restarted fourth on the outside lane behind Kyle Busch.
As the cars began shifting through the gears, the bottom lane led by Ryan Blaney disconnected allowing the three cars of Busch, Wallace and Brad Keselowski to tuck themselves tightly together and shove themselves into the race lead by the exit of Turn 1.
By the exit of Turn 2 and onto the backstretch, the top-three cars had moved from the top lane to the bottom.
In the tri-oval and with drafting help from Keselowski, Wallace saw an opportunity to take the lead from Busch and ducked to the outside lane and momentum propelled him into the race lead on the final lap.
As the field was screaming into Turn 1, Wallace was under attack from close friend and race dominator Ryan Blaney. As Blaney went to make the move on the bottom in Turn 1, Wallace threw a block.
The cars did not crash.
But as quick as Blaney regained momentum and tried to make the pass for the win on the outside lane – Wallace again threw a massive block in front of his close friend at the exit of the Turn which cause Blaney to make contact with the bumper of Wallace’s No. 45 Toyota.
The contact knocked Wallace’s car sideways and into the path of Keselowski where he suffered significant damage and was hit a second time by Martin Truex Jr. who was trying to avoid the spinning race cars around him.
The caution was immediately thrown, freezing the field and ending the race. Kyle Busch won his second race of the season, while Blaney claimed second and Wallace credited with a distant 28th place result and a DNF (did not finish).
After the race, Wallace could be seen throwing his head and neck restraint device (HANS) on pit road in frustration knowing he had a car capable of winning his second Cup race at the 2.66-mile superspeedway and propelling his team owned by Denny Hamlin and Michael Jordan second car into the Cup Playoffs in the fall.
Gaining his composure, a short time thereafter, Wallace took responsibility for the incident.
“I just got dumped by the No. 12 (Ryan Blaney). I threw a late block – close, close block,” said Wallace after the race. “Not the 12’s fault. I honestly thought that he would leave me high and dry going back around.”
Blaney said Wallace ran out of blocks.
“I mean, it’s just you get big runs, take ’em when you can,” explained Blaney. “I’m glad everyone’s okay, but in my mind you kind of triple move like that, triple block, you can’t block three times. I don’t know. Runs are so big.
“As a leader, with Bubba, trying to block, which is the right thing to do. But I think a lot of those, I mean, I got to go somewhere.
“I hate that cars got torn up, I hate for us being so close to the win. I’m not blaming anybody. Just hard racing at the end of this thing. Unfortunate cars got tore up and we missed out on another win.”
Despite his worst Cup finish since Circuit of the Americas in late March, Wallace said he was proud of the team’s effort on Sunday. He called it the team’s best performance on a superspeedway since he joined the organization in 2021.
“Just hate it for the team,” added Wallace. “It’s just how it goes. That was our best – by far – plate race we’ve ever done, so hat’s off to the No. 23 group.”
“A great day for us, just a crap result. I hate it I caused that one. Man, I thought it would play out a little different, obviously not getting wrecked. I thought the move would have happened off of (Turn) 2.”
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
