“The sport changes so quickly.” Joey Logano may have been referring to his luck, but his words after clinching the Texas victory also apply to people’s perception of him. Just last weekend, the Team Penske driver became NASCAR’s black hat after hurling expletives at his teammate. From an MLB legend to furious fans, many people mocked Logano’s DQ in Talladega. However, it only took one week for Logano to flip the script, and for a Cup Series rival, Bubba Wallace, to acquit him.

Bubba Wallace had a fairly good Talladega race, finishing 8th, and that was mostly because of Austin Cindric’s mistake on the last lap of stage 2, when he broke up the Ford line and let the No. 23 Toyota pass for the stage win. Wallace had taken a sly jab at Joey Logano as well. However, Texas witnessed him taking a softer approach towards the Penske star.

Bubba Wallace owns up to Texas mishap

Well, the Würth 400 presented by Liqui Moly was a chaotic one. The race featured 12 caution flags that thinned the field of contenders and extended the race by 4 laps. From Denny Hamlin’s No. 11 Toyota catching fire to Jesse Love spinning out on his second Cup Series start, there were a variety of mishaps. But a proper ‘Big One’ occurred on lap 172 after Talladega missed out on it.

Bubba Wallace’s No. 23 Toyota grazed the wall exiting Turn 2 on the restart. It appeared to slow Wallace’s car into Joey Logano’s No. 22 Ford. From another angle, it also looked like it was Logano who got Bubba loose and into the wall. The wreck subsequently collected a slew of cars. They were of Noah Gragson, Alex Bowman, and AJ Allmendinger. The latter two collided against the outside wall, while Chad Finchum also incurred damage.

Despite Joey Logano being in the thick of the incident, Bubba Wallace ensured to play fair in Texas. In a post-race interview with Bob Pockrass, he explained what happened. “I hate that I got into the fence, I was trying to give, I think the 22 room, and then just got the wall and just started chaos. So hate it for my teammate and everybody involved. But, man, we were making progress at the start of the weekend. It was going to shape up to be a good day, but nothing’s ever for certain.” 

Pockrass asked Wallace if he blames himself, and the 23XI Racing driver wholeheartedly agreed. “Yeah, for sure,” he said, before cracking a little joke for his detractors. “Nah, I blame it on my team; it’s never the driver’s fault. The fans are going to have a field day with that one.”

Clearly, Bubba Wallace was willing to let Joey Logano take it easy this weekend. After all, the Penske star started 27th and dodged immense carnage to win in the end. He led just 7 of 271 laps and finished with a 0.346-second margin. Wallace, on the other hand, flipped his fortunes for the worse. After starting 9th, Wallace lingered in the top ten for most of the race. It was only the final stage melee that relegated him to a 33rd-place finish.

Wallace lamented about what went wrong with his car: “I don’t know, something was shutting off. We got up to a certain speed, a certain RPM, and it just shut off on its own.” He added that he could not handle the Texas ravage: “Just had the laps, but it doesn’t take much to get you off your rhythm. And I got bit by my own mistake.”

Indeed, Texas Motor Speedway offered up a unique challenge to Cup Series drivers. And that is what caught most drivers in a mess on Sunday.

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The truth about Texas

Cup Series drivers were aware of what they were in for this past weekend. The 1.5-mile Fort Worth, Texas, track has some unique features that can easily lead to wrecks. Most notably, these involve Turns 3 and 4. While drivers needed to lift off the throttle through turns 1 and 2, which have 20 degrees of banking, they had to find a way not to lift in turns 3 and 4, which have 24 degrees of banking. The “tunnel” under the surface of turn 4, along with a small bump, can make it difficult for drivers to maintain control, leading to spins and crashes. The grooves at Texas are also tricky. They appear to go up to the middle lane for the race, but not much higher than two grooves wide. If a car goes outside of the gray area, it might be in trouble. So Bubba Wallace aptly said, “It’s chaos when you come into Texas.” 

The press asked the 23XI Racing driver what exactly he finds chaotic – is it the track? Bubba Wallace answered, “Yeah, there’s a fine line. You don’t know when you cross it till it’s too late. So I just got a little bit too high. I thought it was okay, just trying to manage…Yeah, you find yourself in bad spots quick and you don’t even know you’re there.” 

Besides navigating the unique build of Texas Motor Speedway, drivers also had to contend with the fuel window. It was approximately 70 laps at Texas. With the stages just slightly longer than 70 laps, teams tried to pit halfway between the stages and possibly twice during the final stage, depending on tires. Some of the same teams got caught in wrecks, unfortunately.

Evidently, Bubba Wallace provided a critical analysis of his Texas outing instead of playing the blame game. As the season proceeds, let us see when the 23XI Racing driver can fetch his first win.