TOYOTA RACING – Bubba Wallace
NASCAR Cup Series Quotes
JOLIET, Ill. (July 4, 2026) – 23XI Racing driver Bubba Wallace was made available to the media on Saturday prior to the NASCAR Cup Series race tomorrow from Chicagoland Speedway.
BUBBA WALLACE, No. 23 Upper Deck Space Jam 30th Anniversary Toyota Camry XSE, 23XI Racing
Did you enjoy your event at Navy Pier celebrating your 30th Anniversary Space Jam scheme you have on your car this weekend?
“It’s cool. It’s a true genuine full circle. I remember being a kid watching that on repeat and so to have that connection and be representing Looney Tunes, Warner Brothers, Space Jam, it’s everything that movie provided as a kid to be reliving that is just super cool. I appreciate all the parties involved and it was a great event at Navy Pier, had a great turnout, met a lot new fans and hopefully get them interested in this sport and get them to come out and be a part of it.”
What is it like to have Michael Jordan as you boss?
“It’s cool. We’re going on year six, so that question is fairly old, no disrespect, because it’s been six years now. It’s always special coming back to a place that he made so special and he was a part of this area and everything he built and created his legacy and everything he was able to do with his craft. Now to be representing it and taking it down a different path in the sport of NASCAR, it’s kind of surreal when you sit back and look at it. He’s ultra-competitive and super supportive of our race team and everything that we need to go out and win races. Hire the right people to make sure they are doing their jobs and getting us the right equipment, it starts with him. It’s not just throwing money at something and hoping it succeeds. He understands the business and makes the most out of it each and every weekend. We’ve had an incredible year as a team and it’s only getting better each and every week, so just excited for the future.”
Does this year feel like a bit of a rollercoaster for you?
“Every year it’s the same rollercoaster. I think we’ve been that much better this year, so the highs have been higher than before and the lows have been different. When we sat down in the offseason with Charles (Denike, crew chief) and Dave Rogers (23XI Competition Director) and myself sat down in a meeting and highlighted the low hanging fruits and what we needed to do and the biggest thing for us to just raise the floor. There was a lot of potential left at the end of our bad races last year, whether we would have a 15th place car and finish 18th to 20th. At Nashville, Pocono, a couple to where we were top 15 at best and the other races we’ve had winning potential and we haven’t been able to see it play through. We have a great first stage in just about every race the last two or three months. We marched forward from where we were, whether that’s qualifying or just metric from rainout. We would have the speed, but something would go wrong. It stings a little more this year just knowing how much potential is left out there and then to see how our teammates are winning. It’s like, damn, I think if we can have everything go right we can be in victory lane too. As opposed to last year where the floor was much lower.”
How do you handle managing the emotions of the mental side of it?
“You marry your best friend and have a good sounding board. It’s tough. Have I had the happiest of days lately? No, I haven’t. But at the same time I have a great support system at home and I have two beautiful kids and that helps out a lot. It’s all part of it. I sit there every year and ask why we are in this scenario and as much as I don’t want to hear it, she gives her thoughts and her advice on how to handle it and we go to the racetrack next week. You surround yourself with good people and it helps out.”
23XI Racing were all fast in practice and in San Diego a few weeks ago. How are you seeing the growth across all four teams there?
“It’s fun showing up to the racetrack and having speed. I got in the car yesterday and I didn’t remember anything about Chicagoland Speedway. The only thing I could remember was the fire station out front. So, we get on track and I look at some data and try to watch some film a little bit. I feel like I have a good grasp on it, so we got and make our first 10-lap run and I’m P35 and I’m like, this is going to be a long weekend. But, we made some adjustments and obviously finished practice second and we worked hard to get speed out of her car. You do look at the pylon and you see the numbers and our car is fast and it’s the people that we’ve put in place ot extract the most speed out of our cars. It’s the conversations we had in the offseason. I felt like we were a very volatile team the last handful of years where our three cars will be good, we go to the next week and we run 10th to 15th. We go back to winning and it was just like a ping pong match. I brought that up and you look at the 11 (Hamlin), you look at the five (Larson), and you look at the 12 (Blaney) and it’s every week those guys are in the top-five. They’re figuring out how to get speed and that that falls on the drivers. I’m one of the biggest ingredients and part of the whole recipe, right? I think it just falls back to how we approach the season and looking at the important thing and not getting too far ahead of ourselves. We’ve been doing a really good job, everybody at the racetrack and everyone at Airspeed has just been doing an incredible job to bring us cars. And then we are also getting the right data at the racetrack to focus on the areas that the drivers step up in a big way when it comes to Sunday. So it’s just everybody working together. Could not be more proud of what we’ve been able to do as a race team. It’s going to be a good second half of the year.”
You posted a picture earlier this week with a Rowdy hat and you’ve had Rowdy over your door. Was there some significance behind that picture?
“Ever since Charlotte weekend it’s been sitting there. There’s a poker table and right next to the wall. It’s just been sitting there and I’ve been meaning to find a place for it. There was a Columbia helmet that was sitting there so it got moved to another spot. I just felt like it was nice to put it as a centerpiece on the helmet wall. I mentioned in my helmet wall post months ago, I’ve never really wanted to trade with anybody. (Ryan) Blaney was at the top of the list for awhile. He was bugging me for years and finally got one of his and (Scott) McGloughlin, so I thought it would be fitting to do something different with the KB hat and how much he meant to my career. So it felt good and cool to do that.”
What are some of the keys to you to keep growing the sport here in the Chicago market?
“It’s just tough with this one because we are so far away from the city and there’s a lot of traffic. The people that live it probably don’t want to deal with it on a weekend, but it is what it is. We have a great facility here. I don’t know the reason why we stopped coming here, I don’t know what the attendance was back in 2019. I feel like it’s going to be a interesting race that people will want to tune into tomorrow to see how it all shakes out. I think it’s a great market, whether it’s here or the street course. I truly enjoyed the street course, I thought it was just different than what we always do. Having our first street course was special. I was a big proponent of being in the area, I think it’s great for the sport. We have a lot of fans in this area that want to see more growth and more opportunity to be a part of our sport. Anything we can do as drivers, we are all on board as a sport moving forward.”
How do you try and bridge the gap between getting people down here to Chicagoland then perhaps back in downtown at some point?
“We have to look at way to make the fans to want to come out. I don’t think you can just say hey, come watch this product we have on track. I think we need to have events going on to educate the people about the sport that are new and have them doing interactive things out in the midway. There’s a lot we can do as drivers. We’ve tried it for both races coming up throughout our weekly calls and what we have in the media. You need to sit down with key stakeholders and find ways to make it interactive and people wanting to come out and enjoy the fun. There’s no concrete answer, just a lot of work needs to be done.”
Do you have a stance on where you would like to see NASCAR race on July 4th weekend?
“No, not really. I think we just continue to work on our product and keep showing up and providing and producing really good racing. Keep giving the fans what they want to see and have them itching for more after the checkered flag falls. That’s the ultimate goal I believe, to get more people involved and get that conversation rolling about NASCAR and continue to grow the hype up. These last handful of weeks have been really, really fun with San Diego, Sonoma, and now we’re here at Chicago. We’re hitting really big markets and providing really great racing and everything that falls in behind that has been really positive. As far as July 4th, have fun.”
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