During his second full season in the NASCAR Truck Series in 2014, Bubba Wallace felt untouchable.
“You couldn’t tell that kid nothing,” Wallace said, referring to his 19-year-old self. “Just jump in a truck and go rip. Didn’t have any self-doubt in the world.”
That was the year Wallace won four races — the most victories he’s ever collected in a single season while competing in one of NASCAR’s top three national series. But that was 10 years ago, and a lot has changed for Wallace, who is now 30 years old.
He’s starting his seventh full-time Cup Series season, his fourth year driving for 23XI Racing and he still has a lot to prove.
Last season, Wallace made it all the way to the Round of 12 during the playoffs before making his exit. While it was a career-best effort, it was a journey he openly described as stressful and mentally draining. He also hit a bit of a low after his longtime friend and fellow competitor, Ryan Blaney, won the championship at the Phoenix (Ariz.) Raceway finale.
“Sitting here on the couch questioning everything,” Wallace wrote in a reflective post he titled, Life, following Phoenix. “You would think your bud winning the championship would bring that joy and excitement back. Sadly, it did not.”
He didn’t veil his struggles, but slowly, he overcame them.
That’s where his 2014-self comes into play.
“Trying to bring that back, so I feel good,” said Wallace, who noted he’s been re-watching a lot of his races from that Truck Series era.
Aside from attempting to rekindle that don’t-back-down attitude he exhibited as a teenager, there have been a few other contributing factors to the positive mental state Wallace is riding into the 2024 Cup Series season.
“Turning 30, celebrating my one-year wedding anniversary, celebrating life, just having fun with life, letting the little stuff go, focus on the big stuff,” Wallace said.
He may be the same physically — “I’m lazy…I need to go and work out,” he joked — but mentally, Wallace is in a much better place than he was at the end of 2023.
“I have the confidence, and the awareness of where I’m at in the sport and having just a new appreciation or a different appreciation, just a different mindset going into this year, racing for something totally different,” Wallace said. “I’m really good. The best I’ve felt mentally.”
It was a combo of his renewed zeal and a little luck during the season-opening Daytona 500 on Feb. 18 that pushed Wallace to a fifth-place finish after starting in 14th.
“(We) were fast enough to get to fifth, but you don’t know, right? What if we restarted fourth or in the lead? I don’t know, man. I’m so frustrated, but proud of this team. This was the cleanest 500 car I’ve ever had,” Wallace noted following the race. “Lot of positives. The team, 95 percent execution, but you got to have 100.”
It was his third top-five result in the Great American Race.
Though he didn’t win, the performance still provided the No. 23 team with a strong foundation to build off of for this weekend’s Ambetter Health 400 at Atlanta Motor Speedway — another superspeedway race.
“(Daytona and Atlanta) are just about survival. Then you showcase that you can run up front and get pushed, and be a pusher and all of that,” Wallace said.
There are four qualities the 23XI Racing driver believes make a competitor a good superspeedway racer and ironically, they all tie into his refreshed mental state.
“Decision making. Confidence. Awareness. Have to make all the right decisions,” Wallace said.
As for how that applies to his new approach, he said, “You can’t just sit back and let it come to you, that’s not how the sport works, you need to go out and earn it. I think just having a different mindset — being aggressive, being confident. Self-confidence is what’s going to yield the results for us.”