By his own admission, Bubba Wallace’s first nine races of the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series season have been far from perfect. Crashes, engine issues, pit stop mishaps, speeding penalties, miscues — Wallace and the No. 23 Toyota team have seen it all in the first quarter of NASCAR’s season.
However, the 29-year-old driver for Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin’s 23XI Racing team has high hopes for the next stretch of the season. Not only does Wallace say he and the team are learning from their mistakes, but his first career Cup wins also were at two of the next three tracks: Talladega Superspeedway and Kansas Speedway.
So ahead of Sunday’s GEICO 500 at Talladega, For The Win spoke with Wallace about his season’s progress, making contact Hamlin’s bumper last week at Martinsville Speedway and the Dr Pepper and 23XI SPEED Institute Tuition Program — which 23XI says has distributed more than $230,000 in tuition support. Now in its third installment, the program offers tuition support for 23 college students each year and was established to boost the 23XI SPEED (scholarship, professional education, executive development) Institute in its diversity and equity efforts.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
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We're a quarter of the way through the 36-race season. You've got a top-10 finish and a top-5 one, what do you think is your team's biggest area of improvement at this point in the season?
It’s just execution — execution on my end. I really sent us a massive hole with two early crashes at Atlanta [Motor Speedway] and [Circuit of The Americas] back-to-back that really set us back a lot. But we haven’t had clean races, whether that’s penalties — I sped last weekend [at Martinsville] — or just pit stops haven’t been the cleanest. Losing spots there or just failures that we [need] a better control on.
So just got to really look back and self reflect on things that we all need to do better at and apply those things for the next next quarter that we have in front of us. So a lot of good tracks coming up for us, so easy to get excited.
Last weekend at Martinsville, you were trying to pass Denny Hamlin, 23XI's co-owner, and you made some contact with him. Do you ever think twice about bumping the boss on the track?
.@BubbaWallace puts the bumper to the boss! pic.twitter.com/fiibll17UF
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) April 16, 2023
Definitely don’t want to wreck each other. But at the same time, he’s the boss of 23XI. The [No.] 11 car has nothing to do with 23XI Racing. So at that time, how I look at it is: He’s competition. And so you race the competition how they race you, and that’s the easiest way I can put it.
But you know, when we get into our Monday meetings and moving the team forward, then yes, Denny has a strong suit table. But as long as he continues to race and drive the No. 11 for a different team, then he’s competition to me.
I wanted to ask about the Dr Pepper and 23XI SPEED Institute Tuition Program, 23XI Racing's college tuition program. It's in its third year, it's as old as the team, so what kind of involvement have you had with the participants?
Dr Pepper came on as one of the founding sponsors of our team, and they wanted to be more than just a name on a race car. I think they wanted to do something better for the community and help the sport grow. And it really aligns with the team’s core values, my core values, of helping others and making sure we give the right opportunities to the right people and letting them expand their experiences and their expertise. So it’s cool to see how far the tuition program has come. Offering up X-amount of dollars to lucky individuals to help further their career is as important.
Fuel your future with $5,000 in tuition from the @DrPepper and 23XI SPEED Institute Tuition Program. 23 deserving students will be selected and two may receive exclusive internships from 23XI Racing. pic.twitter.com/NgOVZQjMfm
— 23XI Racing (@23XIRacing) March 16, 2023
Do you ever get to meet the tuition recipients or the students who eventually become 23XI Racing interns?
Yeah, they get to come to the races and hang out and get to see what our life’s like, and you get to have some conversation with them at the shop as well. So it’s definitely cool. It’s an eye-opening experience.
And me — you know me — I’m hard on kids that are fresh out of college or going into college or just new people to our industry. I love to just kind of break the mold with them and kind of get them on their toes. It’s always fun for me. They might not like it, but at the end, they know I’m kidding around with them.
As you mentioned, 23XI has been very clear about its goals to be not just a diverse team but to help diversify the NASCAR and motorsports industry. From your perspective, how do you see the tuition program or internships contributing to that?
We look at trying to be different and innovative and bold, and it trickles down through from the drivers, to the crew members to the front office to probably little mice running around the floor after hours picking up the crumbs. It’s just everybody has their own unique personalities, and it’s showcased each and every day at the shop. So it’s fun to be here and fun to be in an environment like this.
Say there's a 20-year-old student out there who's interested in motorsports. What's your pitch for them to apply to the program?
Michael Jordan. Have a good day. [Laughs.]
It’s hard though. You go to some of these race teams or some of these corporations, even away from racing, these big-name brands that, for me, are environments that I wouldn’t suit well in. It’s like the stuffiness and very trim and prim and proper and all that, like, that’s, that’s totally not me. Here, we’re not like that. I’ve got a meeting here in five minutes that we have to be serious and buttoned up.
But other than that, everybody gets to showcase who they are. They don’t have to really hide anything, and I think that’s important. That’s what I wanted to instill in this race team is, hey, I don’t walk around acting different for anybody. I don’t care MJ walks in the door. I don’t care if the president walks through the door. You know, I’m Bubba Wallace, and this is me. And I think that resonates with a lot of our employees here on how they conduct themselves around each other and how they interact with each other. And I think that, that makes everybody feel a little bit more personal, right? And a little bit more like at home. And so that’s the biggest thing for us.
Going to college is obviously not super common for drivers. But did you did you ever consider college, or was it always racing?
It was always racing for me, so I’m never the best one to advocate for school because I was always gone. And school was on the backburner. But I hear that school is important, so definitely go to school!
Perfect game day attire🙄 pic.twitter.com/imt6PcWnq3
— Bubba Wallace (@BubbaWallace) September 21, 2019
During the college football season, Dr Pepper does this tuition toss where students throw footballs at a target and the person with the most points wins money. But there's often a debate about this. What is the correct way to do the toss: a traditional quarterback throw or a two-handed chest pass?
I would say the proper way’s to be like a quarterback and throw it like that.
It’s competition, right? So you just have to beat your competitors and whatever method that is [best], then utilize it. But you know, for me, I think I have too much pride to go out there and not try to quarterback it.
