The Goodyear 400 race at Darlington Raceway marks the halfway point of the regular season. Therefore, the focus will now shift from the start of the season to who makes it to the playoffs. Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing have been the dominant forces, sharing a major chunk of race wins. This has resulted in other teams constantly trying to play catch up, and the task will get more challenging as desperation starts to creep in.

Bubba Wallace from 23XI Racing knows how it feels to be on the edge, trying to make the final 16. Call it ill fate or just running out of luck, Wallace once again finds himself in a similar position for the 2024 season. For the time being, he is four points shy of the current cut-off, and his runs in the previous two weeks have been a concern. It might seem like the 23XI star is struggling to cope with the pressure, but he is optimistic about turning the corner in upcoming events.

Wallace looking to repeat his heroics of the 2023 season

After consecutive top-10 finishes at Martinsville and Texas, Bubba Wallace was manifesting a win that would secure his playoff spot. But just when it felt like he was racking consistent top finishes and good runs, the Talladega tragedy derailed his momentum. Dover, a track where he has done pretty well, also turned out to be a no-show for him, as he finished at P32.

Ahead of the race at Darlington, acknowledging being in a tough spot, Wallace said- “Yeah, I mean, our speeds there. Last week, we missed it. Look at us in the 45; we made our best track into one of our worst tracks, so we got a lot of discussion about that.”

The good news for Wallace and the 23 team is that they’re back on their favorite hunting grounds. Although the Kansas race didn’t turn out well for them, they can still build on their past success from the spring events at Darlington and Charlotte. Wallace finished inside the top 5 in both of those races, and he is hoping to achieve similar results this time around.

“That’s behind us so, previous two weeks you know, just caught up in the wrong stuff at the wrong time and like, keep it going. This is where we lit the week last year at this point in the season, so it’s time to do it again,” the Alabama native concluded.

His teammate Tyler Reddick too had a disappointing race at mile-and-a-half at Kansas. And it was surprising to see both the 23XI cars struggle to make positive runs at the track where they have seen success in the past.

Tyler Reddick reveals the mistakes they made at Kansas

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It’s fair to say the No. 45 team is the better-running race car of the two entries from 23XI. With consistent top-10 finishes and a win at Talladega securing the playoff spot for Reddick, Kansas Speedway just seemed like a good place to bag another big result. But that was not the case for either of the two 23X1 cars.

Reflecting on the missed opportunity, Reddick, in an interview said, “We never really gave ourselves a chance though. I made some pretty big mistakes early in the race, tore the car pretty bad and we still were able to get back up to fifth with a pretty damaged race car. But yeah, finishing 20th and running where we did on stage three was not what we wanted.” He further added. “You never wanna go on a track that you have a good track record at and run that bad, but we learned a lot from it. When we go back and when it matters a lot in the playoffs, we’ll have a lot to go off.”

Reflecting back on their mistake, both teams went hard at work in their race shops and got back on track for Darlington. Both Bubba Wallace and Reddick showed good speeds in practice. The latter even bagged his first pole win of the season. So it’s fair to say that the 23XI camp has come prepared for this weekend.