BRISTOL, Tenn. — Bubba Wallace has put his misstep at Martinsville Speedway in the rearview mirror and set his sights on Sunday’s race at Bristol Motor Speedway.
But Wallace did admit he was mad at himself for initiating contact with Carson Hocevar that ended Wallace’s day and left him with a 36th-place finish.
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Wallace texted Hocevar, and the two are moving forward with smiles.
“Oh, it was good. He didn’t do anything wrong Sunday, so I apologized to him, but all good,” Wallace said.
Hocevar — who has initiated his fair share of contact in the NASCAR Cup Series — dove three-wide to Wallace’s left on a late-race restart and passed Wallace without issue. In the next corner, Wallace contacted Hocevar and spun him out, but the damage was more severe to Wallace’s car than Hocevar’s. Hocevar had no qualms, especially considering he continued racing until the finish.
“Yeah, he texted me, and I kinda laughed about it because there’s times where I feel like I’m definitely deserving of something,” Hocevar said. “And I was laughing that — luckily my stuff was still rolling — but I didn’t feel like I deserved it and still got it. So I was just laughing at how it worked out. But no, he texted me and said he was just having a rough day, and when I passed him, he’s like, ‘you did nothing wrong. I was just already mad and that sent me over the edge.’ I was like, it’s cool, man. I’ve been there, done that. I’ve ended plenty of days, and obviously, it hurt him more than it did me. So we’re all good.”
The biggest impact happened off the track in the Cup Series points standings. Wallace fell from third in points entering Martinsville to a four-way tie for eighth, leaving him 11th on paper. Asked if he felt like he was eighth or 11th in points, Wallace said he “hadn’t even noticed.”
At one time in Wallace’s career, he dwelled on points week in and week out. That time is behind him, no matter the current-day importance of points. The problem, of course, is his recent fall in the standings. A Darlington crash out of his control sank his No. 23 Toyota to a 34th-place finish. One week later was Martinsville, where he earned his first DNF of the year. In the immediate aftermath of the incident, Wallace harbored that frustration again.
“I’ve been mad at myself my whole life. It’s just another day,” Wallace said with a laugh. “Yeah, it sucks. I gotta tuck my tail and take it on the chin and move on. No one was happy about it, but we do know we have another opportunity in front of us to go out and rewrite the history books.”
Indeed, there is no panic inside the No. 23 23XI Racing camp. Before this two-race setback, Wallace hadn’t finished worse than 11th in the season’s opening five races. With a week off after Martinsville, the team has regrouped and is charging back in full force for Sunday’s Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway (3 p.m. ET, FS1, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
“I mean, we’ve still got a lot of racing to go,” Wallace said. “Just like The Masters, there’s still a whole ‘nother 18 to play (Sunday). We’ve given up a lot of points in the last two races, unfortunately. Had a nice off weekend to reset and to get back up on the horse and go on for the next however many we’ve got.”