Kevin Harvick says he’s impressed by the speed shown by Bubba Wallace to start the NASCAR Cup Series season after a third-place finish on Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
“Vegas, Homestead, both weeks. Super fast on the short run, managed a great race at Homestead start to finish,” Harvick said on the Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour podcast. “But that’s the whole team. And when you look at Bubba, that’s kind of been a little bit of the problem in the past, is he hasn’t been able to manage a whole day consistently all the time. And you have to be able to manage those days, because they’re all going to take twists and turns all over the place.”
Wallace is seventh in the standings with only two finishes not 20th or worse but that doesn’t tell the full story. The 23XI Racing No. 23 is in the top half of the standings because Wallace has them constantly in the top-five and scoring stage points.
Vegas was a reflection of what this team is capable of when they put a full race together. Combine that with Wallace adjusting to a new crew chief in Charles Denike, who came over from the McAnally Racing Truck Series team, and Harvick is really impressed.
“For a lot of these guys, that’s been the problem, is they can’t manage that and get the result that you should get that day,” Harvick said. “Like if you’re running eighth you need to finish eighth. You can’t lead a race and not finish in the top five when you have a car that’s capable. You have to capitalize on those days. There’s going to be some tough days where you’re running 20th and you need to finish 15th because you’ve done a better job at managing those weekends.”
Harvick thinks this is sustainable too.
“For Bubba, I think his team changes and his scenario have been really good. Very similar to what we see with Josh Berry,” Harvick said. “On the flip side you see the 6 car of Brad Keselowski and the 54 car (of Ty Gibbs), those situations haven’t meshed like the 21 and 23 have on the other side of the fence.
“We’re really starting to see, we’ve been to enough racetracks now. We’re going to another true short track this weekend at Martinsville. We’re really starting to see which teams are gelling well as you’ve gone through.”
