Speaking on his Actions Detrimental podcast, Denny Hamlin says he likes what he sees out of Bubba Wallace through the first six races of the NASCAR Cup Series season.
“The 23 team deserves a shout out as well,”Hamlin said. “Bubba’s performance throughout the day, they continue to just get better and better like we’ve been saying for the last few years. Between Charles (Denike, crew chief) leading that team and Bubba, they’ve just really stepped up this year and are running great.”
To his point, Wallace is seventh in the championship standings but should arguably be higher because he only has two finishes that were not in the 20s. In other words, Wallace is continually running inside the top-five and scoring stages points but had some unlucky breaks until putting a full race together and nearly outright winning on Sunday at Homestead.
“About fucking time we got one,” Wallace said.
“We know we can do it. Look at Vegas, we got pinched up in the wall … put ourselves in some bad spots. Today, I had to fight for it. We fired off just okay and I said I wanted clean air and good track position. My pit crew was solid and gave me a shot. Good restart and it was on from there.”
Wallace led laps late in that final run but faded behind Larson and Bowman.
Even Sunday nearly derailed for Wallace, though, as Noah Gragson broke traction during a mid-race restart and knocked both of them outside of the top-five. He then immediately got washed up by Logano for 10th to end the first stage too.
“I get fenced by (Gragson) and I’m on the outside of (Logano) and he gasses up, don’t know what he’s doing, and I’m like, what are we doing here,” Wallace said. “Just race how we get raced moving forward but taking a deep breath, and having good people around me has been important, but being a jackass is going to get me being a jackass back.”
Again, Hamlin is just really impressed by what he sees with the Wallace and Denike pairing. 23XI hired Deniked after a stellar Truck Series career in which he challenge for the championship with Christian Eckes the past two seasons at McAnally Racing.
“I mean, just, you want to go back and listen to what I said earlier in the year, you know, we got, you know, we feel like we got a game changer there in Charles that, you know, is getting the best out of Bubba,” Hamlin said. “That their cars are fast. I mean, I would contend the 23XI cars in general are just really fast. So I think they got really fast cars and Bubba’s putting it together. He’s putting in the work and obviously it’s showing what’s results right now.”
