TALLADEGA, Ala. – Bubba Wallace was in a free-wheeling mood during Saturday morning’s media scrums at Talladega Superspeedway, fresh from a top-10 finish at Martinsville a week before and buoyant about his chances for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series showdown.
As usual, he’ll be competing in the 23XI Racing No. 23 Toyota co-owned by friends and associates Michael Jordan, the NBA legend, and Denny Hamlin, who won the pole for Sunday’s GEICO 500 (3 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) during Saturday’s qualifying session at the 2.66-mile track. The Wallace-Hamlin partnership is now in its third season, but hard racing between the two last weekend at Martinsville showed that the driver-owner spirit of kumbaya has its limits.
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“Yeah, the 11 car is a competitor,” Wallace said, nodding toward Hamlin’s No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. “It’s a different organization, different race team. So, people say that’s the boss. Not when he’s driving. He’s a competitor, and that’s it.”
Hamlin led once during last week’s 400-lapper at Martinsville, which was won by Kyle Larson. Hamlin eventually placed fourth, and Wallace started and finished ninth in the ninth race of the year.
During Hamlin’s stint up front, he worked aggressively to keep other potential contenders a lap down. When he encountered Wallace’s No. 23, the two traded contact as Wallace tried to return to the lead lap.
Those bumps aside, Hamlin said he expects Wallace to drive hard and that he’s able to split the employee-employer viewpoints.
“Listen, as a car owner, I would say, ‘Man, you’re about to go a lap down in a track-position race, you better fight everything you can,’ ” Hamlin said. “Now, as a driver, I’m like, ‘Get the hell out of my way. I’m the leader. Like, I’m trying to make up some ground here.’ So that’s one where, while I may be, like, perturbed in the moment, in the bigger picture, I’m like, ‘Well, this is what I would expect him to do.’ So that’s how it gets separated, and people wonder how do you separate it? When I’m driving, I’m a race car driver. I’m not an owner.”
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Wallace has high hopes for Talladega, where he scored his first career victory in October 2021. He’s led laps in six of his last seven starts here, and the superspeedway style of racing has long suited his skills. The confidence level at the other track types on the Cup Series schedule is still a work in progress.
“Speedway stuff, we’ve been able to build up a decent-sized resume for the speedways and other tracks, you know, we’re still building on that,” Wallace says. “Mile-and-a-halfs, we felt like we were pretty good at last year. Short tracks and road courses we needed a lot of work on. But, you know, a new track, new weekend, it’s a new opportunity, right? So you just go out and try to execute the best that you can.”