Kaulig Racing has parted ways with Josh Williams, driver of the No. 11 Chevrolet in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, the team announced Wednesday.
Williams had driven the No. 11 car since the start of the 2024 season, earning six top-10 finishes across 54 starts. Williams posted a 21.7 average finish last season and mustered a 20.0 average finish through 21 starts in 2025.
Kaulig Racing will field multiple drivers for the No. 11 over the remaining 12 Xfinity Series races this season, starting with full-time Cup Series driver Carson Hocevar this Saturday at Iowa Speedway in the HyVee Perks 250 (4:30 p.m. ET, The CW, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
“As most of you have seen, Kaulig Racing has made the decision to release me for the remainder of the season,” Williams said in a statement on social media. “This has been a difficult day for my family, friends, long-time partners and fans, whom I can’t thank enough for standing by my side through all of this. We will be back soon and looking forward to a much brighter chapter in my racing career. I wish nothing but the best for my guys on the 11 team.”
Williams has made 240 career Xfinity Series starts across the past 10 seasons, earning a career-best finish of sixth twice – first with DGM Racing in 2020 at Kansas Speedway in the No. 92 Chevrolet and tying that mark at Charlotte Motor Speedway in May 2025 with Kaulig Racing. The Florida native has also made five Cup starts and two Craftsman Truck Series starts.
Williams, who turns 32 on Aug. 3, has earned two wins in ARCA Menards Series competition, both in 2016, with one coming at the Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway and the other at Madison International Speedway.
The NASCAR Xfinity Series stays in the midwest on Saturday for the HyVee Perks 250 at Iowa Speedway (4:30 p.m. ET, The CW, IMS Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). The CW App will air Xfinity Series qualifying at 12:05 p.m. ET on Saturday.
Short-track practice and qualifying procedure will be in effect, with cars split into two groups for a 50-minute practice session (25 minutes for each group), followed by qualifying. Qualifying is two laps, one round.
The qualifying order below is determined via metric that combines the previous race finish by owner (70%) and current owner points position (30%).
The race itself will occur on Sunday (3:30 p.m. ET, USA, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
The NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs committee will reconvene next month after a mid-August meeting between NASCAR and NBC Sports executives about the future of the championship format.
On the latest episode of the “Hauler Talk” podcast, NASCAR managing director of racing communications Mike Forde provided an update on the panel tasked with exploring potential Cup playoff changes that still could be implemented as early as the 2026 season.
“There are a lot of different opinions, so I think it’s a matter of boiling it down to the top four (options), getting with NBC, then getting back to the committee and then getting with NASCAR leadership and the NASCAR board of directors to say, ‘OK, here’s what it is,’ ” Forde said. “Now can we do that in time and feel good about it for 2026? I think really what it comes down to is we don’t want to feel like we are pushing through a change that we’re going to have to change again. So we want to feel really, really, really good about it. So if that can happen for 2026, great. If not, I think we’re comfortable waiting until 2027.”
The playoff committee, which met earlier this year at Daytona and Charlotte, consists of about 30 members who were recruited to provide a broad cross-section of perspectives that range from returning to a full-season championship to keeping the playoffs intact but adjusting the field size or expanding the championship round.
After meeting before the Daytona 500, playoff committee members were sent a 20-question survey and asked to rank their top four playoff options. The poll results were discussed in the Charlotte meeting. NASCAR also is planning to conduct a fan council survey on a menu of playoff options. …
During the podcast, NASCAR senior director of racing communications Amanda Ellis also provided a backstory of the penalties to Austin Hill, who received a one-race suspension Tuesday for intentionally wrecking Aric Almirola in the Xfinity Series race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Hill also was held five laps for reckless driving.
“We had multiple camera views to determine very confidently this was an intentional spin,” Ellis said. “Based on the camera views, we were very confident, very quickly that was something he did.”
Team owner Richard Childress had said Hill should avoid suspension as had been the case with Austin Cindric, who was penalized 50 points and $50,000 for wrecking Ty Dillon at Circuit of The Americas earlier this season.
“We do view these a little bit different, and largely it had to do with the track type,” Forde said. “Slower speeds (at COTA), tighter confines, things of that nature. That’s why we landed on, I think it was 50 points and a $50,000 fine. Obviously, a lot of debate on whether that was too little. Some people felt that Cindric should have gotten a one-race suspension. This one, we viewed the same way we viewed the Bubba Wallace (wrecking) Kyle Larson at Vegas a couple of years ago; Chase Elliott (wrecking) Denny Hamlin at Charlotte (in 2023). High speeds, right-rear hook into the wall, very dangerous situation. And so we view that more at the level of a high-speed oval. And both of those also resulted in a one race suspension.”
Other topics covered by Forde and Ellis during the 25th episode of “Hauler Talk,” which explores competition issues in NASCAR:
— How NASCAR series directors use different methods for randomly determining which cars are sent to the R&D Center for post-race inspection.
Click on the embed above to listen or search for “Hauler Talk” wherever you download podcasts to hear it on your phone, tablet or mobile device.
Nate Ryan has written about NASCAR since 1996 while working at the San Bernardino Sun, Richmond Times-Dispatch, USA TODAY and for the past 10 years at NBC Sports Digital. He is a contributor to the “Hauler Talk” show on the NASCAR Podcast Network. He also has covered various other motorsports, including the IndyCar and IMSA series.
There’s no debating that Justin Bonsignore is among the best race car drivers to ever compete on the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour. His 46 checkered flags rank second, trailing only NASCAR Hall of Famer Mike Stefanik’s 74 victories.
Bonsignore was honored by NASCAR in June, being named one of the series’ 40 best drivers list, as he vies for his fifth Whelen Modified Tour championship in 2025.
“Until they actually put your name on those things, you don’t know if you’ll ever make it,” Bonsignore told NASCAR.com. “We’ve had good stats and success over the last decade and hope you’ll be on there, but it’s cool to be honored like that. It’s humbling.”
Bonsignore wanted to challenge himself even further and compete in more Xfinity Series races throughout the 2025 season, tabbing a nine-race schedule. After a successful debut in 2024 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, which was scheduled to be a one-off start with Joe Gibbs Racing, he contemplated how much success he could find in the series. The record book will show a 22nd-place finish at New Hampshire, but the three–time modified winner in the Granite State earned stage points in both stages, placing second in Stage 2.
“It opened up an itch of wanting to try some fendered stuff,” Bonsignore added. “It was a tough situation because we ran so good (at New Hampshire) and I’m like, ‘we can do this’ and maybe thought it was easier than it is. This stuff is not easy by any means; these guys are really good over here. It’s hard to jump in and out every couple of weeks and be successful.
“Running well there led me to more interest and trying to scratch an itch and check some things off as I get a little bit older and later in my career.”
At a wise age of 37, Bonsignore isn’t looking to transition to the national touring levels full-time. He believes that ship has sailed, no matter the amount of success he has with JGR. He works in Xfinity races around his modified schedule, which has a 16-race slate in 2025.
The schedule Bonsignore and JGR settled on was diverse. It began with the season opener at Daytona before returning to Homestead five weeks later. He made consecutive starts in April at Bristol and Rockingham, and most recently blew an engine in the opening laps at Pocono last month.
“I just wanted to challenge myself,” Bonsignore said of his slate of races. “Homestead was probably not my best decision, but you don’t know how many opportunities you will get to try and do this. I wanted to put myself in places that were out of my comfort zone and places that maybe I’ll never get the opportunity to go back to.”
Sean Gardner | Getty Images
Among JGR leadership, Bonsignore is leaning heavily on veteran Aric Almirola. He’s friendly with modified graduate Ryan Preece, who took a similar path of getting a legitimate opportunity at JGR in 2017. Two partial years of success led to a full-time chance with JTG-Daugherty Racing (now Hyak Motorsports) beginning in 2019.
“You are put on the spot to figure something out as quickly as possible and then be able to give accurate feedback about what you can have to get the car better,” Preece said of advice he’s given Bonsignore. “For somebody in his position, it’s extremely difficult to go out and win or succeed because you’ve got so many factors involved.”
In a deep Xfinity field, success has been limited for Bonsignore. In his first five starts this year, he has a pair of top-20 finishes. His last two attempts both ended up in DNFs.
Getting up to speed hasn’t been a problem, No. 19 team crew chief Seth Chavka explained. It’s the fundamentals throughout the race that need to be improved upon.
“It’s important that we convert our race pace into results,” Chavka stated. “If we’re running 10th throughout the day, we need to execute well enough to finish there through solid strategy, clean pit stops and strong restarts.”
Bonsignore will return to the No. 19 Toyota this weekend at Iowa. His final three races will come in the postseason, beginning at Kansas and ending with the final two races at Martinsville and Phoenix.
No matter the outcomes in Bonsignore’s upcoming starts, he can sum up his transition to Xfinity in one word: tough.
“I just want to have good, smooth days and put together solid runs and build some momentum,” Bonsignore added.
Regardless, getting another prominent modified driver on the national level is important. Preece brought the Modified Tour back to the national stage in recent years, with Bonsignore and Patrick Emerling giving it their best shot, as well. Luke Baldwin — son of Cup Series-winning crew chief and Modified legend Tommy Baldwin — is next in line, making his first four Craftsman Truck Series starts with ThorSport Racing in 2025.
“I think it’s important for the state of our sport to have drivers like Justin or others having opportunities with successful teams and show their worth,” Preece noted, “and show the value that they can bring. Because to go into other opportunities where they might not necessarily be the one that will get you the victory because our sport is based on statistics and wins. If you jump in a 20th-place or 25th-place car and get 15th, the sport doesn’t value that. I think it’s important to go out and have guys like that getting great opportunities and trying to win.”
Knowing Iowa is under a mile in length, Bonsignore is excited for the weekend as he is familiar with the tendencies of short tracks.
NASCAR officials penalized Xfinity Series driver Austin Hill on Tuesday, suspending him for one race for his actions in last Saturday’s race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Hill, driver of the Richard Childress Racing No. 21 Chevrolet, is set to miss this weekend’s event at Iowa Speedway (Saturday, 4:30 p.m. ET, The CW, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Richard Childress Racing announced on social media that the team will not appeal the penalty and that Austin Dillon will pilot the No. 21 machine at Iowa.
Hill tangled with Aric Almirola in the 91st of 100 laps in Saturday’s Pennzoil 250, when Almirola’s No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota first nudged Hill’s No. 21 Chevy into a slide in Turn 3. After righting his car, Hill bumped Almirola’s right-rear fender, turning the No. 19 sharply into the Turn 4 retaining wall.
Almirola was sidelined after heavy nose-first contact, finishing 35th in the 38-car field. Hill continued with a damaged car, but race officials held him for five laps in the pits for rough driving.
Almirola called the contact “definitely intentional” in interviews after he was evaluated and released from the Indianapolis track’s infield care center. Hill declined comment after his 34th-place result, but in radio transmissions to his No. 21 team after the altercation, the 31-year-old driver indicated that the initial contact left him struggling to regain control before the two cars touched again.
Hill’s absence from a regular-season race will require a waiver so that he may retain his eligibility for the Xfinity Series Playoffs. Under a rule established before the 2025 season, he will forfeit his total of 21 playoff points and be ineligible to collect more before the postseason begins.
Competition officials also issued two-race suspensions to two Legacy Motor Club crewmembers after the right-front wheel detached from the No. 43 Toyota driven by Erik Jones in Sunday’s Cup Series race. Jones crashed in the 90th of 168 laps after the wheel failure, and he finished 36th after starting a promising third in the 39-car field.
As a result of the safety violation, NASCAR officials suspended LMC’s Kellen Mills (jack) and John Rosselli (front-tire changer) for the next two events – Sunday at Iowa and the following weekend at Watkins Glen International.
Team Penske driver Ryan Blaney won Stage 2 in Sunday’s Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but it was his best friend and 23XI Racing driver Bubba Wallace who captured his first crown jewel, taking the checkered flag in double OT at the Brickyard. As the defending winner at Iowa Speedway, will Blaney claim win No. 2 of 2025 this weekend?
NASCAR.com’s Pat DeCola ranks the top 20 Cup Series contenders after the Brickyard 400 at Indy and before Sunday’s Iowa Corn 350 Powered by Ethanol at Iowa (3:30 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Analysis: Elliott continued his remarkable 2025 consistency at Indy, once again landing inside the top 15 but struggling to get much else going, failing to lead a lap or collect any stage points as the Regular Season Championship battle tightens. He has looked strong in essentially every single Iowa race he’s run at the national series level and it feels extremely likely he’ll eventually crack through for a win there, perhaps as soon as Sunday.
Analysis: Hamlin had one of the more impressive runs of the weekend, taking a backup car (that he didn’t sound particularly excited about in pre-race comments) from the rear of the field to a third-place finish in his seemingly never-ending pursuit of a Brickyard 400 win. He’ll be making just a second career start at Iowa across every series, but there’s a good chance with how he’s running that he won’t have to wait so long for this corn jewel.
Analysis: Larson did everything he possibly could to go back-to-back at Indianapolis, but it was just Bubba Wallace’s day, ultimately. Still, things do seem to be trending back in the right direction for the 2021 champ, so look for him to collect at least one more regular-season win to solidify that — possibly at Iowa, where he was the inaugural Cup race pole sitter and led 80 laps last year.
Analysis: Byron was quite strong in both stages and still scored 36 points — three more than fourth-place finisher Ryan Preece — but he likely won’t be satisfied with his fifth finish outside the top 15 in the past six races. This is not the shape the No. 24 team wants to be in headed into the playoffs, but it’s running out of time to get it together before then. Perhaps it all clicks at Iowa, where Byron rode to a runner-up last summer.
Analysis: Bell scored a solid 29 points, but more encouraging was just the scrappy nature of battling back from a few issues and no stage points to settle into the top 10 by the time the checkered flag flew. Iowa is very much his kind of track and after dominating there in the lower series, plus turning in a top five last year in Cup (and with Richmond around the corner as well), it’s not a stretch to think he could still finish the regular season with the most wins.
Analysis: It’s kind of flown under the radar, but Blaney is having a bit of a down season and is averaging his worst finish (17.5) since his rookie season at Wood Brothers Racing (18.5). That said, all of that could be washed away this weekend after a strong run at Indy could propel last year’s Iowa winner to the forward momentum needed to get a deep playoff run going. After seeing his pal Bubba Wallace celebrate a Brickyard 400 win, he could have a little extra motivation in corn country.
Analysis: Reddick appeared to have a car that could contend for the win — and his teammate did win the race, after all — collecting stage points early but ultimately getting caught up in the post-weather-delay restart wreck ended his day for a second straight finish outside the top 10. His overall history at Iowa is pretty spotty, too, so there’s nothing close to a guarantee he stops the bleeding, but he has had some nice runs there in the past, so it’s possible.
Analysis: The Indiana boy can still say he led the Brickyard 400 to the green flag as its pole winner (and even tossed in a Stage 1 victory), but Briscoe’s search for a win at his home track, Indy, will have to wait another year. The Iowa Xfinity Series winner has picked things up lately in general, though, and should have a strong chance to be competitive at the short track.
Analysis: It’s looking like Bowman may have missed his best window of races to win his way into the playoffs, but is still doing everything in his power to point his way in, with a fifth top-11 finish in the last six races coming at Indy. He’s been competitive just about every trip he’s made to Iowa, too, so it’s unlikely he falls off this weekend.
Analysis: Well, there you have it — the biggest win of Wallace’s career just opened up the playoff field tremendously, as the No. 23 has been fast all year; it was more a question of if it would be a playoff car, too. Don’t expect him to trail off this weekend, either — while Wallace has never won at Iowa, nearly all of his starts in Xfinity and Truck have gone for top 10s.
Analysis: Another new winner pushed Buescher closer to the playoff bubble, where he now firmly sits, despite a solid 31-point day at Indy. He still holds a decent 42-point margin, but that could shrink this weekend at Iowa, where Buescher has just one top 10 across five national series starts. Counterpoint? That lone top 10 was a win.
Analysis: Chastain incurred his third crash-induced finish outside the top 30 in the past five races and has just a pair of top 10s since a huge win at Charlotte in May as a frustrating summer stretch continues for No. 1. The literal farmer would love to get it done at Iowa (and nearly did a couple of times in the Truck Series a ways back) but it’s hard to see it happening this weekend based on his recent trend.
Analysis: The defending and three-time champion, having just five top 10s with just four races remaining in the regular season, certainly wasn’t on our bingo card, but here we are. Logano had a shot at the Indy win but was derailed by a flat tire before things unwound completely, leaving the No. 22 team scratching its head before we go to a track where Logano has just one career national series start.
Analysis: Not only did Preece land his best finish since Las Vegas, in March, his 12 laps out front at Indy were the most he’d had in a race since a week even earlier than that, at Phoenix. Preece is trending towards being a playoff driver, and the past winner at Iowa in the Xfinity Series could introduce himself to the Field of 16 this weekend.
Analysis: Gibbs is $1 million richer after claiming the inaugural In-Season Challenge title, but he’s still got his eye on the prize of making the playoffs. A P21 at Indy didn’t help much, but Gibbs was lights out at Iowa in the ARCA Menards Series days, and some of that magic could translate to Cup with how he’s been running this summer.
Analysis: Indy halted a nice, little three-race run Busch had put together and, while he’s just two spots below the playoff bubble, that 81-point deficit looks pretty daunting with just four races remaining. Iowa was a frustrating one for him last year, but “Rowdy” does have a past win there in the Xfinity Series, so in theory, a win this weekend wouldn’t be the biggest shocker. It would be a surprise, though.
Analysis: Cindric has led 40-plus laps in five races this year as he begins to find the front of the field more consistently, but he has just two top 10s in those races, so he’ll need to work on his closing skills. Team Penske has long succeeded at Iowa across various series and, though last year didn’t go so well for him, Cindric could once again mix it up with the leaders on Sunday.
Analysis: Berry is still angling to find some solid footing before the playoffs, but lest we forget — he’s one of the less experienced Cup drivers, with just 70 starts under his belt and is still learning. He’ll take the solid weekends where he can get them and take lessons from the other ones, but Iowa should be a place he can show off his skills, and did last year with a seventh-place run.
Analysis: You know, a top 20 in your first Brickyard 400 while you’re still adjusting to oval racing in general ain’t half bad. And now for something completely different — a short track out in the corn fields, where SVG crashed out of last year’s Xfinity Series event but did start on the front row.
Analysis: Nemechek wasn’t battling for the $1 million at Indy and it’s a darn shame, because he finished the highest out of the four semi-finalists but was eliminated from the competition earlier this month at Dover Motor Speedway. Still, the Iowa Truck Series winner is looking like a dark horse playoff candidate and could surprise a few people these last few weeks before the 16-driver grid is set.
Note: Austin Hill has been suspended for Saturday’s race; Austin Dillon will drive the No. 21 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet in his place.
The NASCAR Xfinity Series will be racing on the short track at Iowa Speedway for the HyVee Perks 250 on Saturday (4:30 p.m. ET, The CW, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Ross Chastain will step back into the saddle of the No. 9 JR Motorsports Chevrolet for his fifth start of the season with the team. Justin Bonsignore also rejoins the Joe Gibbs Racing fold in the No. 19 Toyota for his sixth start of the season. Patrick Emerling and the No. 07 SS-Green Light Racing team will make their seventh start in 2025 to complete the list of 38 entrants.
After a thrilling crown-jewel contest at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the NASCAR Cup Series next travels to the “Hawkeye State” for a battle at Iowa Speedway (Sun., 3:30 p.m. ET, USA, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney will look to defend his short-track win from 2024 and park the No. 12 back in Victory Lane for the first time since his June triumph at Nashville Superspeedway.
See the full entry list for Sunday’s Iowa Corn 350 powered by Ethanol:
SPEEDWAY, Ind. — “I appreciate every single one of you believing in me. It’s been a long [expletive] road.”
Bubba Wallace was right when he radioed that to his team after taking the checkered flag. It was a long road Wallace took to becoming a Brickyard 400 winner on Sunday afternoon at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
The driver of the No. 23 23XI Racing Toyota was in the midst of a 100-race winless streak in the NASCAR Cup Series. He won just twice in 276 prior starts. And the biggest doubter of Wallace lived within his own head.
On Sunday, Wallace the doubter didn’t win. Instead, Wallace the racer shut down the doubt and held off Kyle Larson — the defending Brickyard winner and 2021 Cup champion — on two overtime restarts to etch his name in Indianapolis history as the first Black driver to win a major race on the 116-year-old 2.5-mile oval.
Those last 20 laps, though, forced the racer to silence the doubter.
“It was probably 20 laps of telling myself I’m not going to be able to do it,” Wallace said Sunday. “So I have found my biggest problem, and that’s this [pointing to his head]. If I could shut that off mentally, fully, we could do a lot more of this. …
“At the same time, I was combating, and I’m like, [expletive] right, we can do this. It was kind of like the angel and devil on your shoulder. It wasn’t all negative. But to even have that thought, it’s like, ‘Man, come on. Focus.’ That all went away on the restarts because it was time to really focus and get the job done. Just still working out those kinks and growing as a person. It’s just really cool to be sitting here in front of you guys, so I appreciate it.”
Daylon Barr | For NASCAR Digital Media
Wallace has always battled self-doubt. Noise — external and internal — has fueled him at times. At others, it has eaten at him. Denny Hamlin, team co-owner of 23XI Racing, saw those effects firsthand and admitted Sunday those self-detrimental moments over the years gave him pause.
“It was kind of a time where we were wrestling of like, man, do I want it worse than him or not?” Hamlin said. “Like, I can’t make him want it. That’s going to have to come from within.”
Hamlin and team co-owner Michael Jordan, the NBA legend, hired Wallace as the team’s first driver in 2021. One year later, they added a second team with NASCAR Hall of Famer Kurt Busch piloting the No. 45 Toyota before Tyler Reddick took over that ride in 2023. Those additions pushed Wallace further.
“We want to win,” Hamlin said. “We put a lot of resources into doing that. He’s felt pressure. I think he’s felt the pressure from not only me but Michael and everyone. You want to perform the best of your teammates. It just seems like for me, something changed (in the middle of) last year.”
Indeed, a lot has changed for Wallace in the last 12 months. In July 2024, Wallace was fined $50,000 for door-slamming Alex Bowman after the Chicago Street Race. Wallace called that fine “probably the best thing to happen to me” one week later, allowing reflection after a conversation with Kevin Harvick, who advised him to be the “fun-loving guy that I am.”
In late September, Wallace and his wife, Amanda, welcomed their first child, Becks, propelling Wallace into fatherhood. Professionally, he entered 2025 with Charles Denike, a new crew chief who hadn’t headed a Cup Series team before, after Wallace had built a strong but laid-back relationship with former crew chief Bootie Barker in the previous three-plus seasons.
That combination of life-altering moments triggered something in Wallace that changed his work ethic for the better. Hamlin took notice.
“His valleys weren’t as low,” Hamlin said. “I think it seemed like on the bad days, he was able to compartmentalize that and then think about the positives versus ‘everything sucks all the time.’ That’s a tough way to live. We’re in a business where if you can win 5% of the time, you’re a Hall of Famer. You’re going to lose. This is a losing business, and you have to find happiness in some other way other than actually winning. (Former crew chief) Mike Ford told me that early in my career, and that was the best advice I’ve ever been given. It’s something that certainly needed to be told to Bubba that you’ve got to find these little goals that you feel good about because it’s tough out there.”
Justin Casterline | Getty Images
So, who is Bubba Wallace one year removed from what he once called the best thing to happen to him?
“A guy with a beautiful wife, a beautiful son, and just fortunate enough to be driving race cars,” Wallace said. “Putting family first — that’s all that matters. Makes things easier. It gives you something to kind of focus onto. The racing stuff is kind of secondary now — and you have to go through a mental shift to say that, especially for me.
“I remember when Amanda and I first started dating. I was like, ‘Hey, racing is everything.’ I knew I made a mistake saying that. It took me all these years to realize, like, this isn’t always going to be here, so I think it’s better to enjoy the moments like this, but nothing can overcome the joy, the times that you have with your family at home in a private setting. Then you just so happen to be a race-car driver on Sundays. That’s kind of how I look at it. I’m enjoying life. I enjoy being here at the race track with all you guys. I say it about once a year to myself: I have a really cool [expletive] job. It’s not even a job. A cool hobby. You guys are all living it with me, so it’s cool.”
He remains very critical of himself, though. Reddick won the regular-season championship in 2024 and remains the team’s top driver in 2025, sitting higher in points (sixth to Wallace’s 10th) and boasting a better average finish (14.5 to Wallace’s 18.7). That weighed on Wallace throughout the season. Entering Sunday’s race, Wallace was still hovering at the elimination line of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs — a spot he’s been in seemingly each of the last three years, triggering the thought: “Damn, dude. What is it? Is it me?”
“I’m super hard on myself,” he said. “I see Tyler having a lot of success with the team, and you wonder like, ‘Man, how in the hell do they keep getting these opportunities?’ It’s showing up. Charles says it best: Just keep believing in yourself, and he’s never let me get off that path. Yes, I’ll take a detour for a second, but it’s not lingering. Throughout the weeks, it’s like, man, here we are — I said it earlier — like playoff time again, we’re getting close. But never got too far down a lonely road, if that makes sense, which I’ve been in so many times. I’m sure there’s people in here that struggle with that, but you’ve got to keep on pressing on.”
Now, for the first time in his career, Wallace has won during the regular season. That victory erases any doubts that Wallace will compete in the 2025 postseason.
And maybe it doesn’t erase all the doubt inside Wallace’s mind. He’s working on it, but as his brain reminded him in the closing stages of Sunday’s Brickyard 400, the doubter still lingers. But this time, the racer shut him up and got to kiss the storied bricks in Indianapolis.
“In the last run, it’s like, ‘You’re going to give this away,’ ” Wallace said. “The other side was like, ‘You got this. You’re about to show everybody why you belong here.’ And we did that.”
