1. Is Tyler Reddick’s win a bad thing for teammate Bubba Wallace?
That popping noise you heard Sunday (Mar. 27) afternoon? No, it wasn’t a plate of your grandma’s fried chicken in the fryer. It was the heat being cranked up on Bubba Wallace, some of it being self-induced.
Sunday’s win by Tyler Reddick was great for 23XI Racing. But you have to wonder how badly it beat up the psyche of Wallace. This is now two years in a row that a 23XI driver not named Wallace has clinched a postseason spot within the first part of the season. That tells us that the resources, people, and equipment are there for races to be won, and Wallace’s latest self-defeating quote on national TV doesn’t help things.
There’s a line between holding yourself accountable and self-blame, and Wallace can flirt heavily with it at times.
Wallace likely knows this – that he’s in a ride that other drivers in the garage think they could succeed in – he is far from the first or last driver to be in those shoes.
One way to quiet that doubt, but inwardly and outwardly, is to win races. Until Wallace can do that, the question will linger over the No. 23 team with more and more pressure building between now and the postseason.
2. Should COTA replace Texas Motor Speedway on the schedule?
The Austin road course gets a mulligan from 2021 due to the weather, and up until the closing laps on Sunday when everyone tried to out-knucklehead one another, it was an exciting and compelling road race. Recent road-course affairs have gained notoriety for door-slamming action. Sunday, for the most part, was an exciting road race without those theatrics.
Contrast that with Texas Motor Speedway, which despite the efforts to tweak the racing surface, has been unable to put on a brand of exciting racing in recent seasons. If NASCAR’s long-term view is to add events in new markets, a discussion of oversaturating certain areas of the country needs to be had. If the sport’s top division is going to lean toward road courses and away from 1.5-mile layouts, then there is no reason not to seriously discuss replacing Texas Motor Speedway…
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