Bubba Wallace has straddled the playoff bubble the last four races, so being one point from the final transfer spot isn’t new to him.
The difference this week is that he goes to one of his best tracks.
Wallace heads to Kansas Speedway confident after he won this race in last year’s playoffs. In May, he finished fourth, tied for his best result this season.
“It’s definitely special going back and having the anniversary tour, if you want to call it that,” Wallace told reporters this week.
Sunday’s race (3 p.m. ET on USA Network) marks the middle event in the opening round of the playoffs. For Wallace, it’s as if his playoffs started earlier.
He’s faced intense pressure while battling to make the postseason. Wallace was the last driver to secure a playoff spot two weeks ago at Daytona and opened the playoffs as the 16th and final seed.
“I said it once the playoffs started that we’re better than 16,” Wallace said. “I think we have a really good shot. This first round is really suited for us.”
Wallace opened the playoffs with a seventh-place finish in last weekend’s Southern 500. It wasn’t easy, though. He overcame a spin before the end of the first stage. Wallace admits he made a mistake.
Running 12th, he knew there was no way he would finish the stage in the top 10 and collect any points.
“And I still made a mistake,” Wallace said of his spin while racing Joey Logano for position. “I was so like, ‘Hey man,’ to myself, ‘What the hell are you doing? Calm down.’”
He got a similar message from crew chief Bootie Barker.
“If you just listen to me and grind, you will be fine,” Wallace said Barker told him. “Quit trying to get more than you can chew and making it way harder on all of us.
“So, applaud the team for basically laughing at me but also knowing that ‘Hey, we got you. We’ll get us back in shape and you go finish it off.’ It takes a team effort.”
One of the challenges Wallace and his team have had this season is gaining positions late in a race. He ranks 46th among 57 drivers in positions gained in the final 10% of races this season. That still puts him ahead of playoff drivers Michael McDowell, William Byron, Ross Chastain and Ryan Blaney, but positions lost late in a race could make the difference in who doesn’t advance in the playoffs.
After climbing to fifth at Darlington, Wallace lost two spots in the final 10 laps. Had he remained fifth, he would be a point ahead of Christopher Bell for the final transfer spot to the next round instead of a point behind.
While Wallace has faced some challenges at Kansas, he’s fought back. A fast car helps, but even last fall’s race weekend proved challenging.
Wallace ranked 21st in average speed over 10 consecutive laps in the lone practice session before the team made changes to the car. Wallace also struggled on restarts in last year’s race. He was not able to move forward as quickly as others, but his car was strong enough that he drove by competitors on the way to his second career victory.
“I keep saying,” Wallace said, “nothing is guaranteed just because of your past success. You got to go out and earn it.”
2. Better strategy
Denny Hamlin, co-owner of 23XI Racing, said this week on his podcast “Actions Detrimental” that Tyler Reddick’s team needs to do a better job with strategy.
Reddick was leading with less than 60 laps left in last weekend’s Southern 500 when Kevin Harvick, running second, was called to pit road for his final stop.
Crew chief Billy Scott reacted by calling Reddick to pit immediately, but Reddick couldn’t get down the track to properly enter pit road. Reddick was forced to stay on track.
His actions caused Ryan Newman to spin and NASCAR to call for the caution for the incident just before Harvick entered pit road.
Hamlin was critical of the decision to call Reddick into the pits in reaction to Harvick’s actions.
“This is a continued problem with the 45 of pitting under green,” Hamlin said on his podcast. “They’ve got to stop taking the chances that they’re taking. Live to run another lap. … Luckily Newman didn’t run right into (Reddick’s) door and end his race.
“Thank goodness that Newman checked up and essentially spun himself. I get it. Harvick was close to you and you don’t want to get undercut, but you can’t take that kind of risk trying to come to pit road.”
Scott explained to NBC Sports after the Southern 500 why he called Reddick to pit road in response to Harvick’s actions.
“As soon as someone undercuts you by one lap (to pit road), it’s a couple of seconds (gained by them),” Scott said. “So, if you don’t have a big enough lead over the next car behind you, they can play off of you and pit before you. Once that happens, it’s done. You know you’re probably going to come off behind them.”
Hamlin viewed the matter differently on his podcast.
“Even if he undercuts you by a lap, you don’t know that his pit stop is clean,” Hamlin said. “What Billy could do at that point is look to see how fast is (Harvick’s) pit stop. If it’s a 10.5, say it’s a 10.5, then coming one lap later will not really hurt you that much because you think you’re going to run a better pit stop than that.
“So that negates the time that they’ve gained on you by that on-track speed of a second-and-a-half faster (with fresh tires). Or Tyler could get on pit road quicker than (Harvick) could. That could negate the distance of that second-and-a-half. So there’s a lot of ways to negate it.
“Or, let’s just pretend that Harvick had a fast pit stop. They could have run an extra two or three laps. Now they have to monitor how far back is the next competitor from Harvick. If he’s within a couple of seconds, you can’t really wait too much longer. But if there isn’t someone right there, you can pit a couple of laps later, have a little bit of a tire advantage and you’re probably going to run down Harvick and pass him.”
3. A reminder to keep working
During the offseason, Trackhouse Racing owner Justin Marks had 235 feet marked on the driveway to the team’s race shop to signify the distance Ross Chastain came from winning last year’s season finale at Phoenix and the Cup championship.
Marks used it as a way to motivate his employees, showing how close they were to a title and pushing them to not let up.
“It was overwhelming at first, the first couple times I drove over it,” Chastain said. “I didn’t really care for it. I actually parked on the other side of the building the first week because I didn’t really get it.
“The more I thought about it, it took about a week. Not quite the full week. By the end of the first week, I thought through everything Justin said, talked to him a little bit more about it and just started driving across it like everybody else.
“And now I look forward to it. It’s a little grip of the steering wheel, a little pump on throttle, a quick memory and then right back to ‘What do I need to do today?’ That’s really all I can do is try to be better.”
Chastain’s fifth-place finish in last weekend’s Southern 500 put him 10th in the points entering Kansas. He’s 13 points ahead of Bubba Wallace, the first driver outside a transfer spot.
Chastain’s Darlington result was only his second top-10 finish since his win at Nashville in late June.
One of the challenges for Chastain has been qualifying. He started on the pole in his Nashville victory but has qualified in the top 15 once in the 10 races since. The result is that he has scored two stage points in that stretch.
“It’s just so tough to put our fingers on what we’re missing,” Chastain said. “I just had a conversation (Thursday) about what do I need as a driver, and I don’t have an answer for it. Our engineers at Trackhouse are working on it, and they’re looking down the road and not just even this year but even into next year — what kind of processes can we put in place because it’s not like you can just say we need more air in the right front tire, we’re too low.
“It’s more than just one thing. It’s too across the board that I struggle in qualifying. When we hit it, obviously we’ve proven we can qualify the fastest, but more often than not we’ve been missing it.”
4. Standout season
Chris Buescher has posted his career-best finish at a track 12 times this season, according to Racing Insights. Buescher’s total includes wins this year at Richmond, Michigan and Daytona.
Buescher’s total of career-best finishes at a track this year matches that of William Byron, who has won a career-high five races this season: Las Vegas, Phoenix, Darlington, Atlanta and Watkins Glen.
What makes Buescher’s total stand out is that he has 284 career starts. The fewer starts a driver has, the easier it is to score a career-best finish at a track. Ty Gibbs has had his best finish this season at 20 tracks. Of course, Gibbs ran only 15 Cup races last year so it’s natural for him to have more career-best finishes at a track.
Those who have had their best finish at 12 or more tracks this season (with total number of Cup starts in parenthesis):
20 — Ty Gibbs (42 Cup starts)
13 — Todd Gilliland (63)
12 — Chris Buescher (284)
12 — Ryan Preece (142)
12 — Christopher Bell (135)
12 — William Byron (207)
5. Xfinity showdown
Saturday’s Xfinity event at Kansas Speedway (3 p.m. ET on NBC and Peacock) marks the final regular-season race of the season.
Riley Herbst leads Parker Kligerman by one point for what would be the final playoff spot provided there isn’t a new winner who is eligible for the playoffs.
Ten drivers have clinched a spot in the 12-driver playoff field: Austin Hill, John Hunter Nemechek, Justin Allgaier, Cole Custer, Sam Mayer, Josh Berry, Sheldon Creed, Chandler Smith, Sammy Smith and Jeb Burton. Daniel Hemric will clinch by starting the race.
That leaves one spot left.
Also to be determined Saturday is the regular-season champion. Hill leads Nemechek by 23 points and Allgaier by 33 points.
