The No. 23 team of 23XI Racing may be inching toward a potential victory this season. Bubba Wallace started the year well, scoring fifth-place finishes in Daytona and Atlanta. Despite a few hiccups in between, he is gaining momentum again. After a top-five finish in Martinsville, Wallace stormed back to the front row at the All-Star Open.

But getting a ticket to the All-Star Race was not enough, as experienced players were on the field. Joey Logano stuck to the pole throughout the race except for one lap. Yet Bubba Wallace delivered his best and came close to toppling Logano, as his crew member claims.

Bubba Wallace’s spotter calls Logano’s bluff 

Joey Logano did not let his rivals overtake him for 199 laps of the 200-lap North Wilkesboro race. But on lap 113, 23XI owner and JGR driver Denny Hamlin outsmarted him. He took a three-wide advance with Logano and Bell and snatched the lead. But Logano soon stormed back to the front of Hamlin’s bumper by lap 115 and went on to win a million dollars.

Similar to his boss’s well-curated efforts, Bubba Wallace also went all out to salvage a front-row seat. He masterfully prevented Logano from lapping him for several laps. Wallace opted to pit under the scheduled caution of lap 150 and harnessed the fuel and tire strength required to carve out a path to a 6th-place finish.

Yet there was more to his story, as his spotter Freddie Kraft, recently claimed. On a recent episode of ‘Door, Bumper, Clear’, Kraft narrated how he closely observed Logano’s moves which were stronger than expected. “When the run started, I said these guys on the reds are probably going to try and take off and lap as many guys as they can and hope the tire lasts. And I was like, but they’re gonna fall off. Then I’m watching him and I’m like, okay, he’s not falling off.”

Kraft further elaborated on how Bubba Wallace could not get the upper hand. “It seemed like the yellow tire gave up speed at the beginning of the run and never really gained it back. It would just kind of break even at best. It’s like, Joey ran us. He couldn’t pass us, but he ran us down and caught us.”

Then co-host T. J. Majors cheekily added that Logano was merely playing around. Well, I mean he was smart about it. If that’s a race, he’s probably gonna be a little bit more aggressive…I mean a point race…He was very nice to you.

But Kraft adamantly claimed that Bubba Wallace came dangerously close to spinning Logano out of contention. “I promise you, if he would have done worse than what he was doing, Bubba would have wrecked him.”

Last year, Wallace had scored a runner-up finish, trailing behind Kyle Larson. This time as well, the No. 23 driver faced off with The Double competitor. Bubba Wallace said in a post-race interview: “I was like here we go — the 5 (Kyle Larson) and the 23 charging through the field again, just kind of stalled out and our stuff got burnt up.”

But this season’s All-Star Race also held some more unpleasant memories for Wallace.

Wallace was heckled recklessly by fans

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Ever since Bubba Wallace appeared on the NASCAR Cup scene, he has been denounced by a huge chunk of the fans. Partly owing to his non-white status, the 2023 All-Star Race had a horrible incident in store for him. This time as well, the stands boomed with boos after Wallace appeared to greet the fans post-race. But his fans were present as well, as a woman yelled: “I’m your biggest fan, Bubba!”

Wallace has come to terms with his vitriolic reception at races. In a Stacking Pennies podcast, he said: “The people that matter, they know what’s right and what’s wrong. I think that’s helped me out a lot. just from the mental side of it. And then showing up to the race track and being more comfortable. I definitely lost touch with who I was for the last couple of years and chasing the wrong thing. You know now that you’ve kind of gotten back to being on the right track, things are starting to click.”

So akin to his boss Denny Hamlin, Bubba Wallace is getting more comfortable with being one of the most hated drivers.