Wallace Lauds Pit Crew After Podium Performance In Miami

Bubba Wallace in action at Homestead-Miami Speedway. (Matthew Thacker/NKP for Toyota Racing photo)

HOMESTEAD, Fla. – 23XI Racing’s Bubba Wallace “finally closed one out” this season with a top-five finish in Sunday’s Straight Talk Wireless 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

A fast pit stop at the end of stage two gave Wallace track position to start the final stage. The Mobile, Ala., native restarted behind his team owner, Denny Hamlin, and fellow Drive for Diversity alumnus Kyle Larson. The duo briefly battled before Wallace drove by both to take the lead on lap 177.

The driver of the No. 23 Columbia Sportswear Company Toyota Camry XSE credited his pit crew, led by crew chief Charles Denike, for giving him the shot at the lead when it counted in the final stage.

“My pit crew has been on fire,” Wallace said after the race. “A tremendous amount of work has gone into the last five years of this team to get to where we’re at. We're not where we want to be, but we are damn sure competitive each and every stop. They got us up there, (and) gave me a shot.”

The 31-year-old fended off repeated charges by Larson for the lead over the ensuing 32 laps. Running low in turns one and two and against the wall in three and four kept the Hendrick Motorsports driver at bay, at least for a while.

The pair’s fierce battle for the lead was interrupted by a caution on lap 208 for fluid from Ryan Blaney’s expiring engine.

Wallace won the race off pit road during the ensuing round of stops. Despite briefly going four-wide with Larson, Hamlin, and Alex Bowman, Wallace surged forward, gapping his competition by about half a second during the race’s final restart with 61 laps left.

Like his battle with Larson earlier, Wallace fended off Bowman’s repeated charges, at least until the Toyota driver made a mistake. The veteran driver caught the outside wall, allowing Bowman to get fully alongside him.

Bowman’s No. 48 Chevrolet moved by on lap 235, followed by Larson – who went on to win the race – several laps later. Wallace held on to take the checkered flag in third after that, easily his best NASCAR Cup Series result thus far in 2025.

“I need to look back (at it), but all-in-all, what a day,” Wallace said. “Finally got us a good finish! But we need to go back and look at if I burned my stuff up to start there (during the final stint). I thought I got into a rhythm early, but that was a longer run there … and I thought our capability fell away. I got into the fence and that allowed (Bowman) to get beside me. My capability from then on wasn’t there.

“Hate that I messed up, but I came over the radio and said ‘I haven’t been in many situations like that to give away a race, so there’s a lot to learn today. I can’t even hang my head over that finish,” he continued. “Proud of the effort in race six. We’ve had fast cars, just nothing to show for it (yet). But here we are.

“Got our Columbia Sportswear Toyota Camry XSE a top-three finish, so (it’s) a good day.”

Despite not taking the win, Wallace recognized that the race at Homestead was productive overall. He finished sixth in stage two and earned the Xfinity Fastest Lap bonus point, gaining an additional seven points on top of the 34 points he received for finishing third.

Wallace’s 41 total points tied for the fourth most by any driver Sunday at Homestead.

The top-five finish was also his first since Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway’s playoff race last year and the 23rd of his career. Homestead marked the No. 23’s second top 10 of the season and its first at a traditional intermediate track this year.

“All in all, hats off to my (No.) 23 group here. It's been a grind all year long,” Wallace observed. “I’m talking like we’re 20 races in. It’s only [six], whatever it is. We’ve just been getting kicked in the teeth on the last stage of every race. Finally closed one out here.

“This feels good. I can’t hang my head over this. As pissed off as I want to be at myself, it’s a good day.”

The top-five finish moved Wallace up from 11th to seventh in the regular season standings. He is 78 points behind current leader William Byron and 35 ahead of the playoff cut line, with the last spot currently held by A.J. Allmendinger.

Next for Wallace and the rest of the Cup Series field is Martinsville (Va.) Speedway. He earned his first top five at the historic “Paper Clip” in last year’s running of the 400-lap spring race.

Broadcast coverage of the Cook Out 400 at Martinsville is scheduled for Sunday, March 30 at 3 p.m. ET on FS1, the Motor Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.