Mamba Smith, Kevin Harvick predict wins coming for Bubba Wallace after strong performance at Martinsville

Mamba Smith and Kevin Harvick are riding the Bubba Wallace hype train heading into Texas this weekend for the NASCAR Cup Series.

On the latest episode of Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour, Smith got the discourse started, explaining why he believes more wins are coming for Wallace and the No. 23 team.

“Yeah, the 23XI. I think last year was a lot of the No. 45 kind of leading the way, but iron sharpens iron. I think Bubba has always been a talent. That was never the question. It was putting it all together,” Smith explained. “Like Kevin was saying like, these races are really hard to win. You need to perform and execute on track, on pit road. Everyone needs to do their job well. And the No. 23 is starting to do that at a high level, and it’s starting to show up.

“If you hang around the top five, you’re going to end up winning races. It just happens. So they’re around the top five more and more now, so some wins are probably coming for the No. 23.”

Harvick agrees with Smith, and the former NASCAR Cup Series champion believes Wallace’s confidence has a lot to do with the success he’s enjoyed in 2024.

“They expect it. In order to do that, and run the top five and win races, you have to expect to do it. And they’re at a point where they expect to go out and perform like that,” Harvick delineated. “And you heard Bubba say it, I think it was last week, ‘We just need to right the ship. We just need to get some good, solid, consistent finishes,’ and they’ve done that the last two weeks. You know, that car can be dangerous, if it gets on a roll and Bubba gets confident.

“We’ve all talked about it. He’s talked about it. He can kind of go through these phases of being down on himself, but that man has no reason to be down, at any point, on himself. When it’s not going good, it’s not because of him. You know it’s, ‘Hey, he needs to know that I just need to get in here, get with my team and figure it out.’ And that seems like what he said a couple of weeks ago, is we just need to put ourselves back to some consistency. We know we can do this, we just need to go out and and get it all together, and they have.”

The way Wallace has performed thus far has Smith looking at the No. 23 as a contender to win this weekend’s race at Texas, something that would be huge for Wallace.

“I would say this weekend, I’m looking at No. 20, the No. 23 and the No. 45,” Smith added. “They have you know, that 23XI has a little bit of redemption I think, that they feel like they lost the championship opportunity here at Texas, and I feel like this is a Bubba Wallace kind of racetrack.”

You won’t hear any argument from Harvick on that sentiment. He believes this is one of Wallace’s best tracks, and the No. 23 could find himself in Victory Lane on Sunday.

“Yeah, I feel like Texas and Kansas are Bubba’s two best places, typically, and you expect them to go there and contend for the win. And I agree with you. I know that’s rare, but I agree with you. Those cars are going to be good this weekend,” Harvick proclaimed. “It’s just typically been a good racetrack. We hadn’t raced here in the spring in a while.

“So yeah, to go back a couple times this year, it’ll be interesting to see what shakes out because really, it’s been the Hendrick cars, the Gibbs cars. I think the 23XI — I should say the Toyotas and the Hendrick cars. And I think that the No. 45 and the No. 23 this weekend will be in the mix again.”

Time will tell if Bubba Wallace is able to get the job done at Texas. Regardless, he’s turning heads thus far in 2024 with his driving, and that’s always a positive thing.