Bubba Wallace addresses NASCAR penalty, recovery to strong finish at Nashville

Bubba Wallace did not have a good month of May. His June didn’t get off to a good start, as NASCAR dinged him for speeding entering pit road on Lap 44 of Sunday’s Cracker Barrel 400 at Nashville Superspeedway.

At the time, Wallace was racing for top-10 position. Now, he was a lap down and would have to fight to regain track position. A flurry of cautions helped Wallace get back on the lead lap and from there, he steadily made up ground to finish sixth. For Wallace his best finish since a P8 result at Talladega Superspeedway.

“God almighty, it was a great day. I hate that we got our speeding penalty. I thought I ran my lights [on the dash]; we can go back to the shop and double-check it to see if I messed up. [The speeding penalty] was frustrating because I knew that we were fast,” Wallace said after the race, via Nate Ryan of NBC Sports. “It was nice to kind of methodically work our way through the field and make passes. I’ll never understand strategy. I thought we were pitting into 12th, and they were like that is fifth and fourth in front of you, and I was like how did that happen? All-in-all, a good night for our Camry.”

Bubba Wallace scores best finish in over a month

Wallace badly needed a run like that following three consecutive DNFs. He moved up two spots in the points standings, now sitting 10th through 14 regular season races. Wallace is one of six drivers to secure 100 or more stage points, but his issues have largely come in the third and final stage. His 19.7 average finish is 21st among drivers.

Wallace knows his team is not where they want to be. Sunday night in “Music City” was a step in right direction.

“I have the utmost confidence in this team to continue getting finishes like this on a consistent matter. Not the bouncing back and forth that everyone is used to for the 23,” Wallace said. “We had [expletive] luck the last month. I’m glad May is over with. We will go on and see if we can continue clicking momentum.

“Getting our morale back and confidence back is big for us. We knew we could do it; we just needed to close it out, execute, and we did it tonight.”