Bubba Wallace’s goal is 2 NASCAR wins this year. Superspeedways may be his best shot
Bubba Wallace elaborated on a tweet he sent out Monday about the feeling of anticipation ahead of the 2021 season, when he will debut as the driver for a new team, 23XI Racing, co-owned by fellow Cup driver Denny Hamlin and one of the most recognizable names in sports — Michael Jordan.
“I walked into the bus to throw some clothes on, throw some things on, and I stood there in the pitch black and I said, ‘Damn. It’s time to go,’” Wallace said.
The 27-year-old driver has never won a NASCAR Cup race — he wasn’t won any race since the Truck series in 2017 — but he said his personal goal is to win twice this year, a feat that would put him in the sport’s history books. If he wins once, he’ll be the only full-time Black driver to win a race in NASCAR’s top series since Wendell Scott won in Jacksonville, Fla. nearly six decades ago. (It was a victory Scott was originally denied.) If Wallace wins twice at the top level, he’ll be the only Black driver to do so.
“There’s a lot riding on us,” Wallace said.
Wallace also acknowledged it will likely be a process to learn the car, make adjustments each week and ultimately get those wins. He led 10 laps at Talladega last year and finished the season with one top-five result at the last Daytona race. His best average finish in Cup is at Daytona (14.9). The superspeedways (average finish of 21.1) could be a bright spot for the driver on a schedule that includes multiple new tracks and road courses where he typically hasn’t thrived. In eight career road courses on the Cup circuit, his average placed finish is 26.8.
But Wallace isn’t necessarily circling the Daytona 500 as his best shot to win. He tempered his two-win goal.
“Do I expect to jump in and win right off the bat? No, not at all,” Wallace said. “I know this sport. If it was that easy, a lot of people would be doing it, but it’s not that easy.”
His competition includes Hamlin, a 44-time Cup race winner who is trying for his third straight Daytona 500 win in less than two weeks that would cement his name in the history books as well, and a field that’s “the toughest it has been,” according to Wallace.
And then there’s the shadow of the team’s majority owner, Jordan, a six-time NBA champion who was quick to publicize his goal of running a championship-caliber car as soon as possible.
Wallace said he will officially meet Jordan for the first time in Daytona Beach ahead of the 63rd running of the Daytona 500 and that he and Jordan have texted to communicate so far, but the expectations Jordan has for the driver and team have not been lost in translation.
“We all watched The Last Dance, right?” Wallace said, referencing the ESPN and Netflix docuseries that dropped last spring. The episodes highlighted Jordan’s final season with the Chicago Bulls and his fiercely competitive attitude.
“At the end of the day, he wants winning race cars, winning race drivers,” Wallace said. “And he took an opportunity to invest into me and he’s seen something that sparked his interest to make this deal happen and move forward with it along with Denny.”
In terms of how Wallace is thinking about the perceived pressure, he said it’s “no different” this year than in the past. There’s been pressure to win ever since he entered the sport, he said. Wallace formerly drove for Richard Petty, “The King” and NASCAR’s all-time winningest driver. His manufacturer is switching from Chevrolet to Toyota and his car number from 43 to 23, but Wallace said his mentality is the same.
“We’re just gonna go out and do what I know how to do; Not change up anything, not try too hard because of MJ or because of Denny or because of the opportunity,” Wallace said. “I’ve made that mistake in the past of trying too hard when the time wasn’t right and it does more harm than good.”
He also said his biggest challenge this year will come on the track, trying to compete for wins alongside crew chief Mike Wheeler, rather than off it, where he said hate mail continues to be rampant. His name became widely synonymous with NASCAR’s efforts to diversify the sport and its fanbase last year after he successfully called on NASCAR to ban the Confederate flag. He said that he has a goal every year to not be a part of the headlines, but he’s failed every year “because there’s something.”
“I’ve lost seven pounds from everything that happened last year,” Wallace said. “So much stress and pressure. Lord.”
But he added that he thinks everything happens for a reason. The publicity led to opportunity with 23XI, and now Wallace is trying to keep it all in perspective, minimize the magnitude of the moment to perform and ultimately capitalize on the chance in front of him.
“I feel like people are writing, ‘23XI: Two wins.’ and if we don’t get that then we need to close up our shop. That’s not the case at all,” Wallace said. “That’s a personal goal for me. But knowing the success of Toyota, knowing the success with JGR, there is a lot more opportunity than I’ve had in recent years to go out and compete.”
“We’ll just go out and execute,” he said. “That’s the biggest thing.”
And if he does that, then there might be a headline he can get behind.
This story was originally published February 3, 2021 at 11:51 AM.
