Bubba Wallace has endured a mixed start to his 2025 campaign. At the Daytona International Speedway, he ended the Daytona 500 in 29th place, which was disappointing. However, his recent results have begun to pick up, especially in the last couple of races. In the last two races, Wallace finished 3rd, so he seems to be in excellent form.

In a recent episode of his podcast, Kevin Harvick acknowledged Wallace’s good form of late. In the build-up to the 2025 season, Bubba Wallace and 23XI Racing underwent some structural changes. The African-American driver’s long-time crew chief Bootie Barker was handed a different position within the organization. Meanwhile, his crew chief position has been filled by Charles Denike.

Of course, it has been a bit of an adjustment period for Wallace to get used to his new crew chief. This is a likely explanation behind his initial poor results on the track, as the driver and crew chief are not in sync yet. However, given these last two races, it’s probably fair to say that the two are now officially on the same page.

Harvick said on his podcast, “You can put that right to Bubba Wallace. I know we’re going to talk about him, another great run from Bubba this weekend. Fast in practice, fast in all the averages, in contention at the front of the field again. So when I did the interview with Bubba this week that we’ll have on Thursday, it is the exact same thing. You have to be able to find the details, put the work in, do the things that it takes, and that’s what Bubba talked about with Charles.”

“Being able to have a structured system and understand the type of work, the time that it takes to revolve your life around racing. You design everything that you do around that race schedule, and Bubba is finally at a point where he realizes that. Got his circle of life under control, and everything that he has going on has shown the results in a much different way from Bubba in the past.”

Meanwhile, Mamba Smith touched upon Denike’s influence, especially at the Truck Series level. To that end, Smith rued not backing Bubba Wallace to win the race, especially considering the #23 driver’s track record at the Martinsville Speedway. As a matter of fact, he won a Truck race, and now he has Denike in his corner.

Smith insisted that Bubba Wallace is now coming into his own at 23XI Racing, especially since a fair number of people have always believed in Wallace’s abilities behind the wheel. That faith is starting to be repaid with those back-to-back top-3 finishes at Homestead-Miami and Martinsville. All that he has to do is keep putting himself in decent positions and be consistent. It also helps his case that the #23 pit crew has been on fire lately.

Kevin Harvick could not resist cracking a joke

Harvick also joked, “So when he wins the first time, will the headlines be, ‘Denike Strikes Again?’ I tried to convince Clint that Charles’ last name was Denike. It was there for a second, but no longer. I think Mike corrected me because he didn’t want Clint to go too far down the rabbit hole.”

In all honesty, Harvick and Clint Bowyer like joking around, especially during the commentary. However, fellow commentator Mike Joy likely was not in the mood for any pun shenanigans, so he put a stop to it. On a more serious note, Mamba Smith admitted that he had known Denike for a long time. Owing to that, he confessed that the crew chief is a hard worker, which could really help Bubba Wallace.

He also praised him and compared him to Hendrick Motorsports crew chief Rudy Fugle. As it turned out, both Fugle and Denike made the transition from Truck to Cup Series, and the former enjoyed a lot of success. According to Smith, the key is to have faith in the driver, and that was what Fugle had with his charges.

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