Despite a fifth-place finish in Stage 2 of Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series race at Texas Motor Speedway, 23XI Racing's Bubba Wallace suffered his sixth finish of 20th or worse through the first 11 races of the season when he was involved in a multi-car accident on the backstretch shortly after the final stage got underway.
Wallace made contact with the Turn 2 wall while running seventh. The slight contact forced him to check up, causing Team Penske's Joey Logano to get into his left rear and spin him down the backstretch. The incident also involved AJ Allmendinger, Alex Bowman, Noah Gragson and Chad Finchum.
Per Yahoo Sports, when Wallace was asked if he took the blame for the incident, he replied, "For sure" before sarcastically saying, "No, I blame it on my team. It's never the driver's fault. The fans are going to have a field day with that one."
Wallace then pointed out the chaotic nature of the track and what he viewed as a mistake on his end, saying, "Yeah, it's chaos when you come here to Texas. So, I just had a lapse. It doesn't take much to get you off your rhythm, and I got bit by my own mistake."
To make matters worse for the 23XI Racing driver, Logano would go on to win the race and survive the 12 cautions. He received slight damage from the contact with Wallace, but it did not hold him back the rest of the day while Wallace was forced to retire from the race in 33rd.
Mistakes continue to pile up for Bubba Wallace despite consistent speed
The results do not entirely show it, but Wallace has had a lot of speed this season. He only has two top-five and four top-10 finishes in the 11 races so far, but his 100 stage points are third-most in the series, only trailing Hendrick Motorsports teammates William Byron (107) and Kyle Larson (108). The biggest difference between the three drivers is DNFs: Byron and Larson only have one combined and sit atop the standings while Wallace's three DNFs have him sitting at eighth.
Jonathan Howard of On3 dropped Wallace down two spots to No. 9 in his latest power rankings, alluding to his mistake that led to the multi-car pileup at Texas. With the All-Star race at North Wilkesboro approaching on Sunday, May 18, the fan voting is now halfway complete. On Monday, NASCAR revealed the top 10 drivers in alphabetical order, per Toby Christie of Racing America.
Wallace is on that list, but other drivers like Allmendinger, Carson Hocevar, 2022 fan vote winner Erik Jones and Gragson, who has won the fan vote the last two seasons, could very likely be ahead of him. If Wallace happens to win at Kansas this weekend or finish as one of the top two drivers in the All-Star Open race, which pits the drivers not currently locked into the All-Star race against one another, he will not have to rely on the fan vote.
The speed is one thing, but converting that speed into results is critical in the Cup Series. With an average finish of 18.3 and costly mistakes like he made on Sunday at Texas, Wallace returns to the site of his most recent Cup Series win in 2022. If he leaves Kansas empty-handed, Wallace will have his back against the wall just to make the All-Star race as he looks to put the poor finishes and mistakes behind him and return to victory lane.