NASCAR insiders butt heads over Bubba Wallace winning expectations: ‘Revisionist history’

Bubba Wallace won the Brickyard 400 on Sunday, and two NASCAR insiders debated if the victory was surprising. On The Teardown podcast, Jordan Bianchi and Jeff Gluck of The Athletic discussed Wallace’s winning expectations.

“He’s good. He should have won more races than he has over the past two years,” Bianchi said. “I feel like there’s this talk of like, ‘Oh my god, Bubba won. It’s surprising.’ It’s like, no. He’s been good, he’s been close.”

Gluck chimed in and called out Bianchi. “You don’t think he’s been close,” he said. Bianchi then said that Bubba Wallace should have won the NASCAR Cup Series race at Homestead. It then led to Gluck saying, “This is such revisionist history. Don’t even pretend like you thought this was going to happen. You didn’t think he was going to win his way into the playoffs. No way. Both of us picked him to miss the playoffs, by the way.”

Bubba Wallace ‘had speed’ at Indianapolis

Gluck went on to say that Wallace’s win was a surprise because they have talked about the drivers from Hendrick Motorsports, Team Penske and Joe Gibbs Racing being on top of NASCAR. He also said it was a surprise because Wallace is not the “lead driver” for 23XI, as Tyler Reddick is the defending NASCAR Cup Series regular-season champion.

Bianchi countered that Wallace “had speed” since he qualified second behind Chase Briscoe. He also said that Wallace and the No. 23 team have been racing well, as they earned a seventh-place finish at Dover.

Regardless of how the NASCAR insiders view the win, it was needed for Wallace, who has now clinched a playoff spot. He also snapped a 100-race winless streak and became the first Black driver to win a race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval.

“With a team like we have at 23XI, having the right people, having the right sponsors, it takes everybody there at Airspeed to have days and have moments like this,” Wallace said during his post-race press conference. “Yes, there is a certain level of expectation to win, and so for not being able to do it for almost three years, like you really start to doubt yourself and wonder like, is this it? After the contract’s up, is this it? I mean, I’ve still got a couple years left, but hopefully this gives me another year at least.”