BUBBA WALLACE, No. 23 DraftKings Toyota Camry, 23XI Racing
Finishing Position: 5th
How huge is a top-five finish for your group?
“It’s big. A lot of confidence for myself which is huge. It came down to fuel strategy there, but I appreciate Wheels (Mike Wheeler, crew chief), J.R. (Houston, engineer), Freddie (Kraft, spotter), telling me what to do – 80% there, 60% here, the whole time. It got so annoying, but it worked out. That’s what it takes. It takes a team effort to pull off this. Great day for us. Great day for DraftKings – their first race is the first top-five for our team. That makes you want to resign, but all-in-all, really good day. Really good weekend for us. We knew that we had the speed. Bossman was here – MJ (Michael Jordan) was here. We had the whole staff out, so it was a good day. Good weekend.”
How were you able to save enough fuel?
“Having the right people on top of the box. Freddie (Kraft, spotter), Wheels (Mike Wheeler, crew chief), J.R. (Houston, engineer). They were just telling me 80% here, match lap times with the other guys. I knew we were in a worse position than the 18 (Kyle Busch), so we were just racing our race and I was doing as best as I could. But all-in-all, really solid weekend. Great race for DraftKings in their first race on our Camry is the first top-five for our team. That’s a little pen to the paper action to get them to resign, but all-in-all, just happy with how the weekend went. Smooth sailing for the most part today. It was a little bit tricky. Perseverance. We got through it, and I’m proud of everybody.”
What can this finish do for you going forward?
“We wanted the Playoffs when we started the season. We’ve got a lot of work to do. We know that we are in a hole, but it’s finishes like that, that we have to capitalize on the speed in our cars. Today shows what we can do. We’ve got to keep up the momentum.”
Toyota Racing PR
