DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — By all accounts, Charles Denike is a natural-born leader. He gets to prove it now as the new crew chief of the No. 23 Toyota for driver Bubba Wallace and 23XI Racing.
The duo already netted their first trip to Victory Lane together, with Wallace scoring the victory in Thursday night’s 60-lap Duel at Daytona to earn a third-place starting position in Sunday’s Daytona 500 (1:30 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Denike (pronounced de-NYKE as in “hike”) carries his experience as a former engineer officer in the United States Army with him to the NASCAR Cup Series this season for the first time after five full seasons as a crew chief in the Craftsman Truck Series. In 23 truck races last year with Christian Eckes, Denike led the team to the 22 top 10s and 15 top fives — including 12 straight top fives to end the season, placing third in the championship race.
MORE: Wallace wins Duel at Daytona
Denike’s priority now, though, is the top level of stock car racing. 23XI Racing co-owner Denny Hamlin believes he’s found a hidden gem.
“He just has some characteristics when you hear him talk, when you hear how he’s organized and works that brings in like a Chad Knaus, Chris Gabehart, Cliff Daniels type of feel to me,” Hamlin said Wednesday during Daytona 500 Media Day.
Immediate comparisons to that elite caliber of crew chiefs may seem premature. But Hamlin has worked with and competed against some of the best crew chiefs in NASCAR’s modern era.
“I don’t know if it’s his military background or what, but he’s just so buttoned up,” Hamlin said of Denike. “I mean, when people are talking in the room, his fingers are going 100 miles an hour, putting it all down to paper. He was actually one of the lead guys and organizing strategy for all of us — and not only us, but Joe Gibbs Racing as well.
“And to trust a guy that is just coming in, learning Cup cars and how this all works to have such an instrumental role in how we’re all going to do this as Toyotas shows that they have the confidence in him that obviously we’ve come to find.”
Denike, who replaces Bootie Barker atop the No. 23 team’s pit box, has felt that warm welcome across the board, making his transition to 23XI that much more rewarding.
“It’s really cool to know that they have the belief in me,” Denike told NASCAR.com Wednesday morning. “Makes me proud to know that they believe in their hire because I believe in the company that I came to work for. (I’m) surrounded by unbelievable people, phenomenal people at every level, from owners to mechanics to decal installers to business offices. It’s an incredible place. And (there’s) probably no other place could I come in and have the confidence of being successful, coming out of the Truck garage and having not the experience on the Cup side than this place.
“The way that business is done differently at 23XI allows new people like me to come in and find our place, to fit in, learn at the pace that we can manage, contribute and come to the track and be successful without having to feel like you have to figure out every single detail in a matter of three months of offseason.”
Barker remains at Airspeed — 23XI’s state-of-the-art shop — and played a critical role in Wallace’s rise in performance in the three years they spent together. Now serving as the team’s senior vehicle assembly engineer, Barker still holds a special place in Wallace’s heart — even in the hours leading into the Cook Out Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium.
“I texted him before,” Wallace said, “and I said, ‘Hey, man, I know it’s a change of pace, but I wouldn’t be where I’m at without all the help and all the guidance that you gave. So I appreciate you.'”
Such a significant change after three years weighs on Wallace — so much so that he was “on the fence about making a change because I was so comfortable with Bootie.”
“But I kind of just took a step back and put all the trust and faith in the team to make the necessary calls and the right call,” he said. “And so far, so good.”
MORE: Full schedule for Daytona Speedweeks
Ultimately, Hamlin believes Denike immediately provides an extra sense of accountability that shines through the level of detail Denike pours into his advanced work.
“I think it’s showing, ‘Here’s how I’m gonna prepare to give you the fastest car. Are you gonna prepare the same kind of way to be the best driver that you can be?'” Hamlin said. “I think that people of high caliber like that hold each other accountable.”
Wallace welcomes that — even if he admits Denike’s buttoned-up style isn’t quite what he’s used to.
“He’s very attentive to every little detail,” Wallace said of Denike. “That’s a change of pace for me. Not saying that Bootie was not, but the way me and Bootie operated was, ‘Hey, man, I gave you a fast car. Gonna qualify 15th, 20th, and we’ll go kick their ass in the race.’ And we’ll talk about tractors and bourbon for the next two hours.
“We’re all race cars. We’re all, ‘You need to do this. You need to do that. And we’ll execute to the best. And that’ll be it.’ That’s how Charles operates. So a little change of pace for me. It’s a little bit more structured and buttoned up, which I’m not really a fan of. But I’m also like, ‘Hey, this is a new year, new me, I guess.'”
The next step is helping Wallace become a consistent threat at the front of the field on race day — a process which has gotten off on the right foot after a top five at the Clash and win in Thursday’s Duel.
“Huge amount of raw talent and excellent understanding of what he needs in the car and just situational awareness of what’s going on,” Denike said of Wallace. “(His) race-craft is really good, and what we believe right now the best focus to maximize our on-track results is just focusing on the entire efficiency of the weekend. Minimize some distractions, maximize results. Have clean practices. Go qualify a little better. If you look back on last season as a whole, there’s a whole lot of good content, right? So how can we chop off the bad weekends and reduce those and bring them up to the others? And then we’ll work on taking all of it a little bit better from there.”
At age 31 and entering his eighth full season at the Cup level, Wallace feels more prepared to reach that next level. He has two career wins (Talladega fall, 2021; Kansas fall, 2023), but he knows he and his team are capable of producing on a more frequent basis.
“Just winning and being more competitive,” Wallace said when asked what’s left to unlock those improved finishes. “Being a name that is being talked about for the performance and the success. I feel like I have the mentality to do it. I feel like I have the performance to do it. We just have to put those two things together and make it coincide and exist together, and you never know where the results will take you.
“We’ve just been barely hanging on to the last playoff spot or missing it by one or two spots, and it’s not acceptable. It’s not acceptable, first and foremost, for me — and that’s the most important person that I got to please is myself, and now my kid Becks — although it’s a good thing he doesn’t really know what’s going on right now. But yeah, I think just having fun with it. This is my eighth year in Cup. I feel like I belong here and done a lot. I just need to do a lot more personally to be satisfied.”
The key to making this pairing work is belief in one another. Denike believes in Wallace, and Wallace the same in Denike. Together, their results are already beginning to speak for themselves.
“There’s a lot left to unwind and get to work on,” Wallace said, “but I think Charles fits right into the brand that we’ve created in 23XI, everybody at Airspeed, and just the culture and the environment we have there. So far, so good.”