LONG POND, Pa. — Bubba Wallace entered Pocono Raceway trying to get back to showing his fun-loving personality on Sundays.
His No. 23 Toyota challenged that goal throughout Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race, but the 23XI Racing veteran rebounded from a frustrating start to a 10th-place finish — his second top 10 in the past three weeks.
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“All in all, I was trying to have fun the first two stages,” Wallace said. “That’s what I said I was gonna do. I tried my ass off, and here we are, so good day.”
Wallace now has four straight finishes of 11th or better at Pocono — site of his Cup debut in 2017. But the Alabama native still felt like more points were left on the table.
Meanwhile, Ross Chastain — who now sits in the final position on the provisional playoff grid by 27 points over Wallace — crashed out of the race on Lap 53 and finished 36th. Additionally, Ty Gibbs qualified on pole but ultimately suffered an engine failure, relegating him to a 27th-place finish. Gibbs now sits 67 points ahead of the elimination line, with Wallace still on the outside looking in.
An ill-handling race car and strategy moves prevented the No. 23 team from collecting any stage points early in the contest, but the result was better than the start.
“We didn’t capitalize on points,” Wallace said. “But the 1 (Chastain) had a bad day. The 54 (Gibbs) had a bad day. It was a nice rebound. You know, usually we’re the opposite. We start really good and end up fading and giving up a lot of track position. Here, we were able to call a good strategy and hang on. We just didn’t have the car.
“The 6 (Brad Keselowski), drove it down in (Turn) 1, and I was gonna race the hell out of him for it, and I realized I was going to crash and he was just going to keep going. So it’s pretty eye-opening on how far we’re off. So gotta have a good debrief tomorrow.”
Knowing the No. 23 car was lacking Sunday, crew chief Bootie Barker may not have loved the overall performance but was focused on the post-race positives.
“Great team, great driver,” Barker said. “We got it in us. We capitalized. I’m happy.”
And while Wallace was trying to have fun again, that wasn’t exactly high on Barker’s list of objectives.
“Yeah, to hell with fun as far as I’m concerned,” Barker said. “I just want to run hard, and he did, so I’m proud of him for that. He did good, man.”