In the modern-day NASCAR Cup Series Playoff format, drivers are faced with the impossible task of anticipating what will happen in the final races of the regular season and ensuring they’re positioned appropriately.
Dating back to the end of June, when Joey Logano won at Nashville Superspeedway and tossed the Playoff Grid into disarray, Bubba Wallace and those below the cutline were left to make up a 50-plus-point deficit to the cutline.
Wallace took that challenge in stride, carrying the No. 23 23XI Racing team on his shoulders, turning what looked like a must-win scenario into a full-fledged points battle with Ty Gibbs, Chris Buescher, and Ross Chastain.
With an incredible rebound for a top 10 at Pocono, a stage win and top-five run at Indianapolis, and another massive point day (and fourth-place finish) at Richmond, Bubba Wallace found himself in a good position heading to Daytona, even after his 26th-place finish from Michigan the week prior.
At the unpredictable 2.5-mile superspeedway of Daytona International Speedway, Wallace did exactly what he needed to, finishing sixth place and collecting solid points on the afternoon. What he didn’t expect? The driver 34th in points, Harrison Burton, pulled into Victory Lane.
Now, coming to Darlington, Wallace wasn’t in a must-win but sat a significant number of points below the cutline. If the driver of the No. 23 wasn’t going to collect his third Cup Series victory, he would have to be pretty close.
Wallace fired a warning shot on Saturday, winning the pole for the Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway, one of the hardest racetracks on the NASCAR Cup Series circuit, but as the race went on, his No. 23 US Air Force Toyota Camry XSE wasn’t handling well.
Things were by no means over, though, as Wallace was able to pick up some stage points in the first and second stages and maintain a position inside the top-10. But, once the race got to the third stage, the cautions started coming rapidly, and strategy was played.
Wallace stayed on the racetrack, while several others behind him were brought back onto the pit road to get sticker Goodyear tires, which at that point were only there to five green-flag laps newer. To Wallace’s detriment, three laps on tires at Darlington is worth quite a bit of time.
“We just were back and forth on our US Air Force Toyota Camry,” Wallace said post-race. “We were a little too loose, a little too tight, and the caution a couple laps on tires where we stayed out, I don’t know if that was the deciding factor or not. I was so tight there and got back there in a traffic spot we hadn’t been all day and got caught in someone else’s mess. It’s unfortunate.”
Wallace, having now dropped outside the top-10, was collected in an incident late at Darlington, when Ty Gibbs, Denny Hamlin, and Josh Berry went three-wide in Turn 1 and crashed into the outside wall, collecting several others, including Wallace, who got slammed into by Noah Gragson behind him.
The driver of the No. 23 Toyota Camry would finish 16th place on the evening, 10 spots behind his main rival in the points battle Chris Buescher. But, once again, just like Daytona, nobody anticipated Chase Briscoe to go out and win the Southern 500 at Darlington.
So, while Briscoe advanced to the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, both Chris Buescher and Bubba Wallace did not, and neither did Ross Chastain, who scored a top-five result, but was even further behind in the points bubble.
“Man, just wasn’t good enough for 16th this year,” Wallace said. “I hate that. It stinks saying that, but it wasn’t for a lack of effort for all of us on the No. 23 car. Best of luck to the No. 45 [Tyler Reddick] and hopefully a Toyota wins.”
Unique to other sports, the drivers that don’t make the Playoffs in NASCAR still return to the racetrack for the final 10 events of the season, where Wallace, Buescher, Chastain, or maybe somebody else could try to spoil the party for the championship-eligible drivers.
