Wallace’s Early St. Louis Pace Soured By Late Restart Issue

Bubba Wallace (23) leads Sunday at World Wide Technology Raceway. (Gavin Baker/Nigel Kinrade Photography)

MADISON, III. – Bubba Wallace’s early dominance at World Wide Technology Raceway may have faded in the second half of Sunday’s Enjoy Illinois 300, but his NASCAR Cup Series postseason fate still blossomed by comparison.

Wallace finished eighth to capture his sixth top 10 in the last eight weeks. But on a restart with 85 to go, when he started as the lead car on the outside lane with Kyle Larson behind him, his No. 23 Toyota got hung up in gear as he went through his typical shift pattern.

With no ability to accelerate for a moment, the bottom lane surged past Wallace as he fought to get going again, dropping him four positions and out of control at the front.

He could never get clean air back after that, ending up eighth at the finish after leading 73 laps, second only to race winner – and the co-owner of his 23XI Racing team – Denny Hamlin.

But Wallace still leaves the St. Louis area fourth in points and all but assured of advancing to the Round of 12 as long as disaster doesn’t strike in the final race of round one.

“We are plus 50 [points in the playoff standings], that is a good sight to see. Solid execution all day with varying strategies from the whole field,” said Wallace. “My little restart mishap – I just got stuck between gears, and that hurt myself, [Larson] and [William Byron] on strategy for all of us involved, but we recovered.

“Looking at the big picture, if you would have told me we would have led laps and had the car maybe to win today after practice, I would have said ‘Hell no.’ But there we were. It’s good to see for this group.”

To begin the weekend, Wallace qualified 14th on Saturday. He overcame the challenge of fighting at the beginning of the race to make up track position, motoring up to sixth in stage one to add five stage points to his total early.

Following the positive trend, Wallace captured his ninth career Cup Series stage win in stage two.

To begin the final segment, he jumped out to a lead over Larson and Joey Logano, but a caution for debris after a backstretch brake marker fell off the outside catchfence made things harder.

With a break in race flow and strategy, the restart that doomed Wallace’s dominant day occurred moments later. He slipped back to fourth at that point, and while cautions and pit road execution kept inside the top 10 at the end, Wallace never saw the lead again.

Sunday was the fourth straight Cup Series race Wallace has led at least one lap in, dating back to Richmond (Va.) Raceway last month. He also secured a career-best day at ‘Gateway’ with his first laps led at the track and best-career finish in four Cup Series visits to the St. Louis metro area.

Although Wallace didn’t earn what would’ve been his second win of the year, he did set new marks in other categories. His 343 laps led are the most Wallace has spent out front in a season in eight full-time years at stock-car racing’s highest level.

It’s also the most comfortable position Wallace has been in to advance to the Round of 12. While Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway shouldn’t be overlooked as a cut-off race, Wallace has the second most points by a driver that doesn’t have a win, only trailing Larson as both Chase Briscoe and Hamlin have won.

It’s good, but Wallace still hoped for just a bit more, as any fierce competitor would want.

“All-in-all, it was a solid day for our McDonald’s Toyota Camry team,” said Wallace. “Just came up short.”

Wallace turns to Bristol to try and keep his positive momentum going into a likely second round playoff berth. The Mobile, Ala., native has two career top 10s at The Last Great Coliseum, with his track-best finish of third coming in last year’s playoff race.

Coverage of the Bass Pro Shops Night Race from Bristol is slated for Saturday, Sept. 13 on USA, the Performance Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.