LOUDON, N.H. — For once, nothing broke, backfired or needed to be explained by Bubba Wallace and his 23XI Racing team.
“It’s been hell for me the last month,” he told NBC Sports’ Kim Coon after his third-place finish Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
It’s actually been more like two months for Wallace and his team.
But Sunday was a day where things went right. Wallace scored his third top-10 finish of the season and his best result since placing second in the Daytona 500.
“We’ve had a lot of speed all year, and we’ve had cars capable of that,” Wallace said. “It’s finally good to see that come to fruition. That’s what our races can be like if we continue to do that.
“Just take a page out of this book for everybody on the team to learn from. Myself, I made a lot of mistakes today, especially in the last 20 laps just trying not to lose focus. You’ve got two of the best behind you in (Kevin) Harvick and (Martin) Truex.
“It’s all about hitting your marks. I can go back and watch and know how to do better. I’m sure we can do better, bringing a better car. We did excellent today, I’m proud of everybody, but you can always get better, right?”
His last top 10 was two months ago at Kansas, but that 10th-place finish was not a highlight for the team. Wallace had one of the faster cars that day but two pit road penalties sent him to back each time. Wallace left the track frustrated, telling NBC Sports that his “pit crew sucks.”
Two weeks later, Wallace’s car suffered minor damage in an incident shortly before the end of the second stage at the Coca-Cola 600. Because Wallace was involved in an incident, he was on the damaged vehicle policy and had three laps to get to minimum speed. The team told him to hang back from the pack on the restart to avoid another incident. Wallace didn’t achieve the minimum speed, following his team’s instructions and NASCAR parked the car after it failed to reach speed. A team mistake ended Wallace’s race early.
Two weeks after that, Wallace finished last at Sonoma when his engine blew after nine of 110 laps.
Earlier this month, brake issues ended Wallace’s race early at Road America.
Since placing 10th at Kansas, Wallace had four finishes of 26th or worse in the last six races.
Not having any issues at New Hampshire meant as much as scoring a top-five finish.
“They probably only had a top 10 car, maybe around a fifth-place car best, but they executed well, put a whole race together,” Mike Wheeler, competition director for 23XI Racing, told NBC Sports.
“There’s definitely been some emphasis lately on trying to make sure we execute races.”
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On a day when Kevin Harvick was closing the gap to the playoff cutline, Christopher Bell’s victory put Harvick further behind the cutline with six races left in the regular season.
Harvick trailed Bell by 19 points for the final playoff spot entering New Hampshire. Harvick ran well in the first two stages, outscoring Bell 15-7 in stage points. That closed Harvick’s deficit to Bell to 11 points entering the final stage.
Everything changed during the caution at Lap 206 of the 301-lap race for Todd Gilliland’s Incident.
Crew chief Rodney Childers called for a two-tire stop for Harvick. Childers told NBC Sports that he had watched Kyle Larson move through the field earlier in the race after a two-tire stop and thought that would help Harvick, who had one of the stronger cars.
But the pit stop did not go as well as hoped. As Harvick exited his stall, Austin Dillon entered his in front of Harvick. They made contact, slowing Harvick.
“That cost us two rows on the restart,” Childers told NBC Sports. “If we could have put two tires on and started two rows further forward, maybe it would have been a little bit better.”
Harvick restated on…
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