NASCAR is evolving, and so are the racetracks. There was a time when driving Ovals was enough for the drivers to dish out positive results for the season without having to worry about finding their feet on different tracks or circuits, but that time is long gone. With road courses and street races making waves in NASCAR, the drivers will need to ante up their efforts for the upcoming seasons, and 23X1’s Bubba Wallace is looking to put some strong results on his past shortcomings.
Notably, it has been the road courses that have given Wallace a hard time. P12 at Watkins Glens and P16 at Charlotte Roval were only two respectful results from the road course races last year. However, the 31-year-old feels that with the new Toyota Camry XSE in the picture, he will make significant progress in the upcoming season.
Is the new Toyota Camry a solution to Wallace’s road course woes?
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Breaking into the playoffs of the 2023 NASCAR Cup season was certainly a high point in Bubba Wallace’s career. But by no means, it was a clean run. His struggle at the road course tracks was severely exposed during the last season, with a P31 and P37 finish at the Chicago Street Race and COTA. The good thing about this is that Wallace is well aware of his shortcomings but is focused on turning the corner with the new Camry in the 2024 season.
Speaking on the Rubbin Is Racing YouTube channel, he stated, “Honestly, with our new body, our numbers are really strong, so I’m excited for the Toyota camp. Going to be strong against our Toyota teammates. Man, we really diversified our resume throughout the playoffs. I mean, every track we kind of didn’t really show a weakness, at least showing up for speed. Road Course Roval was really good for us, Phoenix was a struggling place for us.
“When we made it to playoffs, I said round two is going to kick our a** if we happen to make it through. It is because I never really ran well at Texas, and we had a career day there. I fumbled the bag, but that was behind us, and so I think that all the tracks that I looked at as struggling points, like we’re solid(…) Chicago is one I need to work on; that one’s tough, but Iowa’s going to be fun”, he continued.
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With the turn of the leaf, the 31-year-old is looking to make amends for last season and bank on his style of racing for the 2024 season.
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Wallace is confident in bagging positive results during the 2024 Cup Series season
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It sure sounds like a massive win for 23X1 and Bubba Wallace to have made it to the playoffs last season, but in reality, it was far from his best effort. There were times when he tried too hard to get the desired results, and fortunately for him, he did manage to churn out the results. Now looking back to his last season, he feels like he forced his effort too much and will look to follow a more confident approach for the upcoming year.
Bubba Wallace said, “I think going into last year, I was like, man, we finished the playoff run with the 45 strong, like it’s going to happen again, and I was forcing it too much. It’s a fine line. You can’t just sit back and let it come to you, because that’s not how sports work. You have to go out and earn it, like I talked about earlier—just being aggressive and confident. Self-confidence is what’s going to yield the results for us.”
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For a driver like Bubba Wallace, who is known to be hard on himself, it will be a tough task for him to scale up on his performances from last season. However, the driver would gladly take another season with a playoff feature, perhaps with a win or two down the line.
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