Bubba Wallace once again found himself knocking on the victory door at Talladega, but the win slipped through his fingers in the final laps. Carrying an impressive 17.3 average finish, one of the best superspeedway drivers in the field, Wallace rolled off tenth and worked his way through the pack. He wrapped up Stage 1 in sixth but faded to P27 in Stage 2. Still, by the time the final stage moved around, the 23XI driver had clawed his way back into contention.
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By lap 178, Wallace and Zane Smith teamed up to form a third lane on the outside, with the No. 23 driver pushing Smith to the front. Todd Gilliland soon reclaimed the top spot, making it a Front Row Motorsports 1-2 with ten laps remaining. With three laps to go, Wallace caught momentum off Chase Briscoe’s bumper to edge past William Byron for the lead, just as Chris Buescher muscled his way forward.
Moments later, chaos erupted. Buescher, leading down the backstretch with two laps left, took a crooked shove from Byron that sent him spinning hard into the inside wall. Byron, who had been pushed by Carson Hocevar, couldn’t straighten out in time. Up front, Byron chose the inside while Kyle Larson lined up on the outside, with Wallace and Hocevar right behind.
But then, unfortunately, Larson’s car ran dry on fuel with half a lap to go, leaving Wallace and Briscoe to duel it out off Turn 4. The outside line fell apart, and Briscoe’s move sealed the win by 0.145 seconds over Gilliland, who earned a career-best second-place finish.
Wallace, visibly disappointed after coming up short, didn’t mince words. “We made it to the team, but we beat ourselves, so a really good opportunity there again. And just didn’t have all the pieces of the puzzle there, so bummed, frustrated, pissed off. Wanted to get us another one, but we got two more (races to go).”
Reflecting on Larson’s fuel misfortune, Wallace admitted he wished he could’ve capitalized. “Yeah, obviously, you never know when people are going to run out. I think if we could have covered that a little bit better, it would have been hard. If I would have popped bottom, the #19 would have drove around me on the top. Just wasn’t meant to be crazy how it all played out there.”
Now, after the Talladega race, Briscoe has joined his teammate Denny Hamlin in the Championship 4, while two spots remain to be filled. With the two Hendrick Motorsports cars finishing disappointed despite running well at Talladega, Christopher Bell and Larson are the two drivers above the cutline, ahead of the finale race of the Round of 8, with a cushion of 37 and 36 points, respectively.
Meanwhile, Byron, Joey Logano, Ryan Blaney, and Chase Elliott now find themselves on the chopping block, trailing by 36, 38, 47, and 62 points, meaning it’s win or go home at Martinsville.
