Bubba Wallace Optimistic of "Generational Run" To End Chase

Three races are down, and seven remain until a NASCAR Cup Series champion is crowned at Homestead-Miami Speedway in November. Bubba Wallace, the driver of the No. 23 Toyota, who has climbed from 14th to 10th in the Chase Grid over the last three races, has hopes of making a generational run on his path to what would be, for many, a surprising championship.

Wallace, 32, held his own through the mixture of Darlington, Gateway, and Bristol to kick off the Chase. Over the next three weeks, the Cup Series will head to 1.5-mile intermediate ovals. Wallace believes this stretch of races will be pivotal to learning who will eventually hoist the Bill France Cup.

"I think the next three races is a good indicator of who your champion will be," Wallace said during a Tuesday media Zoom call.

Wallace Bullish On Toyota's Speed At Intermediates

If Wallace's prediction turns out to be true, that could spell great news for him, and the rest of the Toyota Racing group, which have been strong at this style of track this season.

"I feel like [the] Toyotas, we're all itching, and I know in the 23XI camp, they're all itching to get back to a mile-and-a-half," Wallace stated. "Toyota has been dominant there. So, I think we pick up right where we left off."

Wallace continued, "We've continued to work even to make our cars better now that we're in the Chase. We continued to push for more. So, I don't expect to see, really, a different change in scenery."

Chicagoland Speedway, 11 races ago, was the last 1.5-mile intermediate oval that the series competed on. Toyota Racing found Victory Lane that day, as Chase Briscoe, the driver of the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, scored the victory.

Overall, Toyota swept the top-three spots at Chicagoland, and the manufacturer, which has the smallest car count of any manufacturer in the field, had locked up even of the top-10 finishers in the running order.

Additionally, Toyota claimed victories at Las Vegas (Denny Hamlin) and Kansas (Tyler Reddick) earlier this season.

Toyota's performance on intermediates this year has been rather staggering. Staggering enough to have Wallace, who led 35 laps in a sixth-place effort at Chicago and was a winner at Kansas Speedway in 2022, be very optimistic about the upcoming stretch of races.

"I think, I look at it for us; I said it after Bristol that we've been in the gauntlet of being around seventh to 10th. And you've had a lot of different names in the hat at these short tracks. Obviously, the Penske cars were fast, but I think this goes back to being in our wheelhouse for the next month," Wallace explained.

Kansas Serves As Great Opportunity for Wallace

Wallace, who has had one of his better seasons in his NASCAR Cup Series career, has also suffered from miserable stretches of bad luck and rough finishes during the campaign, which led to a 14th-place seeding heading into the Chase.

Knowing that he was able to improve his Chase seeding through the opening three races of the 10-race championship fight has him hopeful that he can really make a move forward during this pivotal mid-section of the Chase.

"It's the latter part of the Chase. So, this is where you start to get some separation. And you start to see the standings settle out to where they're at," Wallace emphasized. "So, I know we have a couple of spots in front of us that are easy to grab. But we're still 92 points out, and, you know, I look at Kansas as a great opportunity for [me] and the 23 team."

But just because the next three races seem to line up well for Wallace on paper, there is still work to be done, and he also has to keep his sights set on his other Toyota Racing teammates, who are obviously expected to be just as strong over the next three races.

"But I'm not naive to the fact that there [are] six other Toyotas out there that are easily capable of winning too. So, it's going to be a challenge," Wallace admitted. "So, we just have to be better than those guys, and then we can start making that generational run, as I called it. We've kind of stalled out ever since Darlington. We've just been kind of consistent, but it needs to turn around here."

Kansas Speedway, the site of this weekend's NASCAR Cup Series race, was also the site of one of Wallace's three NASCAR Cup Series victories. If the driver, who has been very strong at this particular 1.5-mile speedway since 2022, can put together another race-winning day on Sunday, he knows how important that would be to his championship aspirations.

"I think winning Sunday ultimately flips the script for all of us. Gets us on the right track to back up that [generational run] quote," Wallace said. "Yeah, I mean, from 14th to 10th is a run. It's not generational. But I think there's obviously a couple of spots in front of us that are easy to grab. And yeah, we just gotta keep pressing forward. But a win at Kansas -- a solid 50-to-60-point day at Kansas will also start that trend."

Wallace continued, "You've got to capitalize on others' mistakes, but also be the best at the end."

Wallace Not Content With Minimal Career Improvement; Wants Massive Gains

Championship or not, with seven races to go in the season, Wallace finds himself in striking distance of setting personal bests in just about every key NASCAR statistical category if he can close out the season strong. While that's nice, Wallace is not content with marginal improvement from year-to-year. He knows that with teammates piling up wins this season, he needs to make massive strides, and soon.

"The baby steps of progression is kinda getting old and outplayed for me. It needs to be massive improvements. I look at our team: five wins with Reddick, Corey [Heim] coming in and winning two races right off the bat. And we're steadily at zero on that win column."

Wallace continued, "As long as I continue to show up, not get lazy, continue to stay hungry and show progression, then that's good. But I'm not saying that I'm in a safe spot because I want to go out and win just as much as my owners and competition want me to go out and win, and our partners involved too, they also want to be in victory lane and see their brands plastered all over the media channels, and everything.

"I feel like I have the utmost responsibility in that, and take a lot of pride and pressure into getting us into victory lane. So, for the next seven weeks, that's what it's all about."

The chase for a championship rally, and the first trip to Victory Lane this season for Wallace continues in Sunday's Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas.

While Wallace's overall career body of work at the 1.5-mile speedway doesn't look uber impressive, at least when you look at his average finish (19.5), six of Wallace's 17 starts at the facility came while driving for the now-defunct Richard Petty Motorsports.

Since moving to 23XI Racing in 2021, Wallace has been much improved at the track.

Wallace comes into this weekend's race having finished fifth in the last two races at Kansas Speedway, and over his last nine starts at the track, he has four top-five finishes and five top-10s. If Wallace can avoid circumstances outside of his control, such as mechanical failures or mistakes by others, he should factor into the conversation for the win this weekend.

From there, the generational run could begin to take shape.

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