(Photo: Dylan Nadwodny | The Podium Finish)
RICHMOND, Va. — After bumping into Kyle Larson and suffering terminal damage at Circuit of the Americas, Bubba Wallace was offered many words of encouragement. One text message he received stood out.
“If you want something to change, you got to change yourself,” wrote Desiree Wallace, Bubba’s mother.
“That stuck with me,” Bubba Wallace said in a media session on Saturday. “There’s a lot of unanswered texts that I had, a lot of unanswered phone calls that I had, but I read every single one of them, listened to all the voicemails and I appreciate them.”
Wallace had finished outside the top 25 for the second consecutive race after crashing at COTA. In an interview with FOX, Wallace was critical of himself, saying “I need to get replaced.”
Wallace said he immediately reflected on what had happened.
“I questioned myself sitting on the plane or sitting in the car waiting to get on the place like ‘why am I in this headspace right now after coming into this year with the most confidence I ever had,” Wallace said. “I think I realized I was solely riding on confidence, not putting in the work [and] effort into being where I wanted to be.
“We put a lot of effort going into COTA, but just from the races before that, you’re just kind of riding on confidence. We’ve kind of had an up-and-down start to the year, but realizing I got to work hard, I gotta be a better person.”
Before COTA, Denny Hamlin, co-owner of 23XI Racing, messaged Wallace and praised him for his growth as a road course racer. Wallace recorded top-10 finishes in two of the final three road course races last season and had high aspirations for last week’s race in Austin, Texas.
“I sent him a message before the race patting him on the back about how far he’s come, especially on road courses,” Hamlin said. “I wonder if that maybe played a little factor in him being so disappointed in himself after I just gave him a bunch of praise. But it just happens in racing, especially mistakes like that. Sometimes, you miss your braking marker and you wad up a few cars, but I think just happening a couple of weeks in a row — it just compounded on him.”
(Photo: John Arndt | r/NASCAR)
After a week of deliberation, Wallace decided that he needed to make lifestyle changes to better his performance on the track.
“I took a lot of time to self-reflect, and basically in short, need to get my ass in shape and work out,” Wallace said. “Just taking care of self. The better your physical health, the better your mental health is.”
Wallace has an average finish of 22nd through six races and just one top 10 to his name. He sits 21st in driver’s points after earning just one point at COTA.
Last season, Wallace finished with eight top 10s in the final 18 races with a win at Kansas Speedway in September. He’s grown substantially at 23XI, Hamlin said, and the team is hoping he’ll find that consistency sooner in 2023.
“He’s lightyears of a better driver than he was one year ago,” Hamlin said. “A lot of that is a tribute to him and a lot of it is a tribute to the team. The team has gotten a ton better, gotten way faster and we’re giving him the tools to be better.
“I think this is just kind of a little snippet in time that a few weeks from now, we’re going to forget about it because it’s going to have a great run and he’ll be happy again.”
Wallace will start 28th in Sunday’s Toyota Owners 400. The race is set for 3:30 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
