Bubba Wallace makes 200th career Cup Series start

After taking the green flag Sunday evening at Nashville Superspeedway, Bubba Wallace marked a milestone 200th career start for him in the NASCAR Cup Series. Wallace rolled off from the ninth position after a strong qualifying session on Saturday afternoon. RELATED: Follow live leaderboard | Wallace's career highlights After Aric Almirola suffered a back injury at Kansas Speedway in 2017, Bubba Wallace was asked to fill in the No. 43 for Richard Petty Motorsports (now Legacy Motor Club). Wallace made four starts with a best finish of 11th at Kentucky Speedway. In 2018, Almirola moved to Stewart-Haas Racing to take over the No. 10 Ford which opened the door for Wallace to pilot the No. 43 full-time. Wallace made an immediate showing, scoring a runner-up finish in that year's Daytona 500. He drove the No. 43 full-time from 2018-2020, scoring nine top-10 finishes. During the second half of the 2020 season, Denny Hamlin unveiled his co-owned 23XI Racing team alongside NBA Hall of Famer Michael Jordan and named Wallace the driver for the team. Wallace earned the team its first victory in October 2021 at Talladega Superspeedway. With the onset of the Next Gen car in 2022, 23XI expanded to a two-car team and partnered Wallace with Kurt Busch. Then, Busch went on to win before Wallace last season but Wallace wound up with the best season of his career to date, scoring his first career pole at Michigan International Speedway during a stretch where he scored four consecutive top-10 finishes. Wallace went on to win the playoff race last September at Kansas Speedway. Through 16 races in 2023, Wallace has tallied four top-five and five top-10 finishes with a best of fourth that he's accomplished three times at Las Vegas, Kansas and Charlotte.