Bubba Wallace has got to be one driver who’s impressed the most in recent times, by really stepping up his game. Only last year, he had his career’s best season, six top 5s, fourteen top 10s, and an average finish of 15.3.
And the #23 driver has continued on the same note in 2025 as well. First, he won the Daytona Duel race, and then he’s been extremely consistent with two back-to-back 3rd-place finishes. Also, he has managed to stay in the top 10 in points ranking, currently sitting in 8th place.
However, the most recent race at the Texas Motor Speedway did not unfold the way Wallace had expected. He had a P9 start, but ended up with a DNF. What was surprising was how calm he was after it. That wasn’t the Wallace we are used to seeing after such incidents. And perhaps this mentality shift is the reason behind his recent NASCAR success.
Before we get into it, here’s a refresher of what unfolded in the “Würth 400.” Wallace was running in the top 10 for most of the race. However, in the final stage, he grazed the wall in turn 2. And as he spun, he took Noah Gragson, Alex Bowman, and AJ Allmendinger with him.
And naturally, Wallace was bummed out with the DNF. However, this time, rather than dwelling too much on what went wrong, he was quick to move on. And it’s all thanks to his new crew chief, Charles Denike. He was the one who asked Wallace to just focus on the positives from the Texas weekend.
Revealing this in a recent interview with SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, Wallace said, “I can’t even compare where I’m at mentally compared to the years past of having a bad race at Texas. Just as frustrated as I have ever been. Cause I felt like I caused that, and I put our team behind after having a really good day. But I got out of the car, and Charles was like, he gave me a laundry list of all the positive things that we accomplished from the start of the week all the way up to Sunday.”
And this made Wallace realize all the things that went right on that weekend. After being 18th in the practice session, the #23 team pulled it together to then go and get a P9 in qualifying. And thanks to all the positives, Wallace was able to quickly move on from the disappointment.
“So I appreciated that aspect and I did my interview and I thought my sarcastic laughing self, somehow pisses a lot of people and oh well, I wasn’t mad. I got back to the bus was like we’ll that sucked, let’s move on to Kansas,” Wallace added.
The whole shift in attitude in the #23 camp is probably the number one reason Wallace is running strong this season. In fact, he even confessed to feeling confident being in contention almost every week now.
Wallace said, “I’ve said this before, but you just want to be in contention every week, knowing that you have a shot every week. And I think just about every time we show up now, I feel I have the confidence in myself and our team that we can do what we need to do to win races.”
Who knows, with this kind of mentality, that winless streak might be on the verge of breaking anytime soon.
