DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Bubba Wallace was devastatingly close, painfully close.
And he felt the agony of defeat immediately, finishing the Daytona 500 on Sunday as the runner-up for the second time in his NASCAR Cup Series career.
Wallace missed out on what could have been his second consecutive superspeedway victory by just 0.036 seconds behind Cup rookie Austin Cindric in the 2022 season opener. It was the third-smallest margin of victory in Daytona 500 history, but in the No. 23 23XI Racing Toyota’s driver’s eyes, it’s first or failure.