On the whole, 2023 has been a great year for the Toyotas. Whether it be Joe Gibbs Racing cars or the Michael Jordan-Denny Hamlin partnered 23XI Racing cars. While the JGR driver, Martin Truex Jr started the championship conversation with his spectacular regular season performances, claiming the regular season championship, both of MJ’s drivers made him proud, making it into the playoffs.

However, besides his teammate’s win in Kansas and his top-5 finish in Texas, Jordan’s driver, Bubba Wallace is yet to make a mark for himself. As the action heads to the road course in Roval for the 2nd eliminator, going past the eventful race in Talladega, Wallace is staring down the abyss as he comes to know the harsh reality of things.

Michael Jordan rests his hopes on his #45 as brute reality sets in on Bubba Wallace

For the first time in his career, Bubba Wallace did it, making it past the regular season into the playoff. Even with the absence of a win in his resume, the #23 driver adopted a sneaky yet brilliant strategy to point his way into the playoffs. Thus, the Alabama native in his 7th season in the Cup Series made it past the regular season.

Unlike Wallace, who solely relied on points, his teammate and apparently NASCAR’s shortest driver, Tyler Reddick (5’5) got a berth, acing the road course in COTA. Reddick then repeated this in Kansas, edging out his boss, Denny Hamlin to the 2nd place to advance into the round of 12. But as the playoff extravaganza reaches Charlotte Roval, both Reddick and his teammate are down for the count.

After an eventful race that took out a number of cars, Reddick and Wallace too got tossed around. Both are now having a point deficit, Reddick 2 points below the cutline and Wallace 9 points behind. However, it looks like Wallace is in deep waters here. Unlike Reddick, who is a road course expert, Wallace’s strength lies in Speedways. And going into Roval, things don’t really add up for Wallace.

Whereas for Reddick, his road racing prowess certainly has him as the favorite. Moreover, the #45 driver has 3 road course wins and an average finish rate of 7.3 at Roval. On the flip side, this might be the end of the line for Wallace, considering his inability to finish well on tight road courses.

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“We gave it away” – Wallace painfully admits his mistake following his bleak Superspeedway run

Things did not pan out well for Bubba Wallace. Despite showing exceptional pace and speed in qualifying, he did not carry enough momentum to get to the checkered flag. Even though he was in the top 10 for a brief time, he couldn’t stay there for long. Instead, Wallace had to run in the middle for the most time.

Reflecting on his speedway run in Talladega, Wallace said, “Not the day that we needed. We put ourselves behind working on a plan.” Mentioning how he was caught up in the middle, the driver relayed the obvious, saying, “ Plans are great with your teammates but I felt like it hurt us to start and we got buried back in track positions.” 

Despite the speedways and fast superspeedway being his forte, past Sunday’s race did not go his way. Wallace then painfully admitted his mistake. “So you had to fight and claw your way back up to the top. It took us about three stages to get there and we gave it away on the last pit stop. So not what we needed.”

READ MORE: Former KBM Driver Bubba Wallace Reveals Kyle Busch’s True Colors: “May Come Off as Being…an A**hole”

Caught in the late crash, Wallace eventually finished 23rd whereas his teammate, who was also caught in the tussle, finished at the 16th spot.