Bob Pockrass
FOX Motorsports Insider
CONCORD, N.C. — Bubba Wallace stewed all week over last Sunday’s finish at Kansas Speedway until he got to talk to Denny Hamlin about two hours before practice Saturday.
Hamlin — Wallace’s boss as co-owner of 23XI Racing while driving for Joe Gibbs Racing — drifted into Wallace as they battled for the lead in the final turns at Kansas. The move resulted in Wallace hitting the wall and finishing fifth. Hamlin finished second, and Chase Elliott won the event.
Wallace said that “95 percent” of the drivers felt that was an “oof” move by Hamlin, who was struggling with power steering issues.
“I don’t fault Denny Hamlin for racing for win, racing for his team and his sponsors,” Wallace said Saturday on the Charlotte Motor Speedway road course. “I get the question a lot — what’s it like racing Denny on the race track?
“No offense to them, but I could give two sh–s, because he’s a competitor, and he has labeled it that way. And so that was two competitors going for a win, and so as much as it didn’t work out, I have to respect that.”
Denny Hamlin with Bubba Wallace in victory lane after after Martinsville.
The victory likely cost Wallace a shot at the championship, putting him in a deep hole going into the elimination race Sunday. A win at Kansas would have automatically advanced Wallace into the next round.
Wallace said he can’t relate to the dynamic Hamlin faces racing for one organization and owning another three-car team.
“I’m sure it’s a difficult thing [for Hamlin] to juggle. It is actually good if I get 60 wins, and it is actually good that I advance myself in playoffs,” Wallace mentioned. “However, man, it is also actually good if the automobile that I personal will get locked into the following spherical and some huge cash on the road. There’s plenty of layers to all of that.
“I might assume you do not take into consideration that within the second you are going for a win, and also you do what you’ve obtained to do. That’s what we have at all times carried out since we had been children, since we began out. And also you’ve obtained to do what you’ve obtained to do to win races, some respectful greater than others.”
Wallace known as it “a somber week” as he listened to Hamlin speak about not apologizing for going for the win on his podcast. Hamlin usually participates in fewer 23XI Racing conferences in the course of the playoffs whereas specializing in his JGR journey.
“I hate it obtained up to now, the lingering impact, however Denny and I simply talked half-hour in the past,” Wallace mentioned early Saturday afternoon. “And it was heart-to-heart.
“The dialog got here from a spot of peace. It went higher than I believed it might.”
Wallace insisted he wasn’t mad about getting put within the fence going for the win as a lot as Toyota was accountable for the race with the top-five drivers in line coming into the ultimate restart and Elliott, in a Chevrolet, gained.
“I simply advised Chase [that] we alley-ooped that for him,” Wallace mentioned. “He appreciated it. That’s what it was.
Can Bubba Wallace bounce again at Charlotte after final week’s incident at Kansas?
Earlier than the contact with Hamlin, Wallace had contact with JGR driver Christopher Bell, the place Bell additionally obtained into the fence. Wallace mentioned he apologized to Bell, saying, “My full intentions had been to make you carry, to not put you within the fence, and I apologize for that.”
Bell mentioned he wasn’t going to carry as they had been battling for place.
“I might have preferred to have … at the least get each of us to the start-finish line, clearly taking one driver out of it, the entire accumulation of the Toyota group epicly failed at Kansas,” Bell mentioned.
“There’s nothing I may have carried out otherwise apart from simply surrender the spot, and clearly you’re not going to do this. It’s what it’s.”
Wallace mentioned the distinction between the 2 strikes was the situation that it occurred, that Bell may nonetheless “see the nook.”
“I did not get an opportunity to see the remainder of the nook, and that sucks,” mentioned Wallace, later including. “’[He could have decided to] flip left and go for the underside. Easy as that.”
Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and INDYCAR for FOX Sports activities. He has spent many years masking motorsports, together with over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting Information, NASCAR Scene journal and The (Daytona Seashore) Information-Journal. Observe him on Twitter @bobpockrass.
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