Bubba Wallace had just driven the best road course race of his NASCAR Cup Series career, and he could not stop thinking about the one that got away.
“It’s what if?” Wallace said after climbing from his No. 23 Toyota at Naval Base Coronado on Sunday. “Tired of living in that.”
The second place finish in the inaugural Anduril 250, run on a temporary circuit laid out across never before raced streets and airfields just across the bay from San Diego, was a genuine breakthrough for a driver who has spent years openly admitting he does not enjoy turning right. It was also, in the cruelest way, a reminder of how thin the line is between a career day and a clean one.
The arrival of Bubba Hamilton
Wallace has never hidden his discomfort on road and street courses. Coming into the weekend, he had made 40 prior Cup starts on such tracks and walked away with just one top five and four top 10s. So when an alter ego showed up in San Diego, Wallace gave him a name. After jokingly comparing himself to seven time Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton on Saturday, he rolled into Sunday as “Bubba Hamilton,” and for most of the afternoon the nickname looked earned.
Starting 12th, he sliced his way up to second within the opening 10 laps, before the first round of green flag pit stops had even shuffled the order. On a layout nobody in the field had ever raced, that kind of early aggression was the opposite of the tentative road course driver Wallace has often been. The sim work he had grumbled about all week was paying off in real time.
“I know how much I’ve struggled in the past and continue to work, and I appreciate everybody on the team,” Wallace said. “Appreciate everybody back at Airspeed. Keegan and William in the sim room, I give them so much crap for the sim and trying to get it right, but we bust our ass to get that thing right. And as far off as the sim was for all of us in the field, I really learned a lot.”
One loose wheel, two laps lost
Then came the moment that turned a possible win into a what if. When a caution flew on Lap 12 after Ricky Stenhouse Jr. stalled on track, crew chief Charles Denike kept Wallace out, planning to pit under green a few laps later. Wallace came in on Lap 18, but front changer Austin Dickey could not secure the right front wheel nut before the car left the box. One lap later, the wheel detached entirely, drawing a penalty that forced Wallace to sit in his pit stall for two laps before he could rejoin.
For a driver who had clawed his way to the front of a race he was supposed to struggle in, the timing was brutal. Yet Wallace went out of his way not to point fingers.
“Go figure,” he said of the moment. “Drive your ass off on a track that you have no idea what you’re doing. Drive up to lead, then have it all taken away from you. I’m not bashing anybody. Pit crew’s been one of the best on pit road and had a mistake. We all have mistakes. Unfortunate that it cost us.”
What followed was the part that should have felt like triumph. Wallace put his head down and drove back through the field, recovering all the way to second by the checkered flag. It was, by the numbers, his best road course result ever. It just did not feel like it.
The asterisk that keeps following him
Wallace described a habit his team has of grading each weekend after it ends, marking down whether it was a “green” race or not, meaning whether everything was executed cleanly without something going wrong. By that measure, San Diego was another one in the wrong column.
“At the end of our weekends, we fill out was it a green race or was it not? Here’s another where it’s not, so that’s a lot of not green races for us,” Wallace said. “And by green means nothing went wrong, we executed, whether that’s top five or top 20. There’s just another asterisk mark beside our finish and that’s what’s frustrating. So, good day, I guess, in second.”
That tension, between gratitude for the result and frustration at the missed ceiling, ran through everything Wallace said. He did move up two spots to 11th in the championship standings, his second top three finish in the past three weeks, and on a brand new circuit that everyone was learning together. There were real reasons to feel good. He just could not fully let himself.
Genuine joy for a teammate
The race finished as a landmark day for 23XI Racing, which scored its first ever one two result. The winner was Corey Heim, the part time driver who beat fellow 23XI racer Tyler Reddick to the win in the closing laps to claim his first career Cup victory in just his 13th start. Heim becomes Wallace’s full time teammate in 2027, and the win came with crew chief Bootie Barker, who once called the shots on Wallace’s No. 23 and guided him to the first two Cup wins of his career.
Wallace, for all his own disappointment, made a point of celebrating it.
“My body language and facial expressions will not show it, but I am really excited for Corey and Bootie, getting him back to Victory Lane,” Wallace said. “Being a winner in the Cup Series is something that, when we get there, we all want to achieve, and to be able to do that for him in his 13th start, it’s pretty special. I know he’s put in a lot of work behind the scenes, especially the weekends that he’s not racing and it’s all paying off for him. I’ve just got to keep busting my ass too and maybe something will go my way, but guess I gotta look at it from the glass half full.”
Sonoma, and a chance to keep the streak alive
The next test is Sonoma Raceway, which has historically been one of the hardest tracks on the schedule for Wallace. His average finish there of 24.0 is his worst at any circuit where he has seven or more starts. After unlocking whatever clicked in San Diego, though, he is daring to think differently about it.
“I thought about that when we’re two laps down. I’m like, maybe my Sonoma weekend will go better because that place kicks my ass,” Wallace said with a smile. “So having a good road course race, I hope I don’t go from hero to zero, but I feel confident going into Sonoma and having a good weekend.”
That is the quiet significance of a frustrating second place. For a driver who has long treated right hand turns as something to survive, San Diego was proof that the work is changing him as a racer. The what if stings now. If Bubba Hamilton keeps showing up, it may end up being the day Wallace stopped dreading the road courses and started expecting to win on them.
Sources:
- https://www.nascar.com/news-media/2026/06/22/cup-series-bubba-wallace-runner-up-2026-naval-base-coronado/
- https://www.nascar.com/news-media/2026/06/21/nascar-cup-series-naval-base-coronado-results-recap/
- https://www.nbcsports.com/nascar/news/what-drivers-said-after-san-diego-cup-win-by-corey-heim
- https://motorsportreports.com/?p=30690
