The No. 23 team of Bubba Wallace has only made the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs once since its inception in 2021. Since then, the No. 45 car, driven by Tyler Reddick, has been in the top 10 in owner points the previous two seasons, with Reddick winning the regular season championship last Saturday (Aug. 31) night in Darlington, S.C. Being such a high-profile ride with top-tier sponsorship, are there leadership changes with the No. 23 team that 23XI Racing should explore this offseason? This week, Joy Tomlinson and Luken Glover weigh the pros and cons in 2-Headed Monster.
The Foundations for Success Are in Place
No, there shouldn’t be any changes to Wallace’s No. 23 team.
Usually when people start questioning whether changes need to be made to a team, it’s for performance reasons. But that’s not fair or necessarily warranted in this case.
Let’s look at Wallace’s stats over the last 10 races. Since Iowa Speedway, Wallace has earned two top fives and five top 10s. That’s not bad (although it could be better), and had it not been for Harrison Burton’s Hail Mary at Daytona International Speedway or Chase Briscoe’s Southern 500 upset, it likely would have been good enough to get in the playoffs.
Do you know who else has those same number of top fives and top 10s? Chris Buescher. There hasn’t been a chorus of boos, calling for there to be changes to that team, despite Buescher missing a win by inches at Kansas Speedway and a corner at Darlington Raceway in the spring.
Wallace also led 84 laps in the last 10 races, which is more than twice what he earned in the first 16 races, and the team has shown impressive speed with a pole at Darlington and the car to beat at Michigan International Speedway prior to the storms pushing things back a day and completely changing the track.
Currently, he has the same number of top fives and top-10 finishes he had in both 2022 and 2023, so there’s a chance to gain even more. With this type of improvement (providing that he does get more), it doesn’t make much sense to alter anything.
Sure, everyone wants to win, and the No. 23 team certainly is capable of winning. He’s won twice already in his career at Talladega Superspeedway and Kansas. Would a crew chief or pit crew change suddenly bring that about? Not necessarily. With crew chiefs, he would need to readjust and get used to the different style the new leader would have. Wallace has had Bootie Barker since the fall…
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