Bubba Wallace, Alex Bowman exchange words after incident during Chicago Street Race

Alex Bowman did respond to the media after the race. He had a solid P8 finish after the contact. He won this race a year ago. I’m not sure he would have had anything for Shane van Gisbergen late, even without the damage. But he was pretty clear. Bubba Wallace did this.

“I thought we had squashed our beef, but clearly not,” Bowman told Jeff Gluck of The Athletic. “I followed the 45 [Tyler Reddick] past him, he ran me into the inside wall into Turn 8. Still felt like I passed him clean, and he absolutely demolished me into Turn 12. I gave it back a little into Turn 1, and then he demolished me again into Turn 2, ran me into the outside wall. I’m just a pinball between him and the outside wall at that point. Certainly, not trying to crash anybody.

“I’d have to watch it back to be certain, but I felt like he kind of did it to himself because I kept getting pinballed between him and the outside wall. Wasn’t the intention, but I don’t know — we had way fresher tires than him. I get the In-Season tournament is a lot, but at that point, I’m just trying to finish the best I can. I wasn’t really thinking about that. Don’t know if that’s what it was about or what, but unfortunate that it happened. It tore up our car a bunch and killed his day.”

Alex Bowman did not care for how Bubba Wallace was racing him. That is fair. Wallace drove him into the wall not once but twice and maybe three times and maybe tried to do it more than that. It was more or less a lap of back and forth between the two.

While exciting to watch, Bowman didn’t have to tolerate that. When the 23 came across his nose exiting the turn, he lifted briefly, but he had to protect his position on track, too. So, he kept driving, and Wallace got spun.

It is unfortunate for the 23 team because they need as many points as they can get at this point in the season. The way they have been bleeding points lately to the cutline is not good. He is only +2 on the cutline to Ryan Preece. If you ask me, Preece has been looking much better than Wallace lately.