Bubba Wallace: Nashville finish 'feels like a win' after rough stretch of races 

Bubba Wallace came into Sunday's Cracker Barrel 400 at Nashville Superspeedway with three consecutive finishes outside the top 30. Early in Sunday's race, things weren't looking much better. 

A pit road speeding penalty in Stage 1 mired Wallace deep in the running order and put him a lap down. But after getting the free pass and slowly making progress throughout the race, Wallace managed to bring his No. 23 Toyota home in sixth. 

"Holy (expletive), I'm whooped," Wallace told Prime Video after the race. 

On a day where Wallace team faced a mountain of adversity, Wallace made it clear that he was proud of his team's effort. 

"After the last month, yes," Wallace said when asked if his top 10 run felt like a win. "The month of May, we want to ball it up (and) throw it away.

"After that last month, (crew chief Charles Denike) was telling us to keep the confidence," Wallace said.

Wallace has been as high as fifth in the Cup Series standings this season, but after a pair of third-place efforts at Homestead and Martinsville, he'd only experienced one top-10 finish in the six races prior to Nashville. With his fifth top 10 of the season under his belt, there's finally some momentum behind Wallace and the No. 23 team again. 

Wallace is 10th in the Cup Series standings after 14 races, 204 points behind leader William Byron. He is 58 points above the playoff cut line with 12 races remaining in the regular season.