There is a particular kind of irony in what happened to Bubba Wallace at Texas Motor Speedway on Saturday. In 2023, at this very same 1.5-mile oval, Wallace delivered arguably the finest single-race performance of his Cup Series career. He started from pole, led a then-career-high 111 laps, and ultimately finished third in a playoff race he very nearly won.

Two years later, Wallace rolled out fifth-quickest in practice and looked every bit as capable of doing it again. Then the rear end snapped without warning through Turns 1 and 2, and the No. 23 Toyota slammed the outside wall. Now, at a track that demands precision, Wallace will have to rely on others.

“We’ll just have to rely on our teammates and go get it,” Wallace told the media after his crash during the practice session.

It hasn’t been the best stretch for the No. 23 team of late. At Talladega the previous weekend, Wallace was collected in the massive Stage 2 pileup, one that he triggered when he got loose after contact from Ross Chastain, wiping out around 26 cars and effectively ending his afternoon early. That dropped him four positions in the standings.

The Texas practice crash now compounds the problem. With the primary car too damaged to repair in time, 23XI will unload the backup, and Wallace will start from the rear for Sunday’s race. Last year, too, Wallace didn’t have the best weekend. He was rather promising during the earlier sessions with a ninth-place start, and was also within the top 10 when stage 2 ended. However, an incident on lap 178 ended his campaign.

And as Wallace said, the session had actually been productive before it ended abruptly: “Just trying to find the right balance for us and our team. So, it’s going to be a good debrief, figure out if we can get some more speed.”

The main issue here isn’t that Wallace will be starting from the back; he usually has enough pace in Texas to make strides, but he might not have the perfect setup to execute those moves. He will have to rely on 23XI’s blueprints and his teammates’ setups, considering the lack of practice data from his primary team. Yet, while Tyler Reddick has dominated the season so far, it doesn’t mean that Wallace would be comfortable with his setup.

If that data were so helpful, then Reddick wouldn’t have been so far ahead of Wallace. Still, as Wallace suggested, the team was able to get something out of the entire scenario.

“This is a very unforgiving place. I believe so [we’ll have to go to a backup]. Speed should be just fine. It happens. I haven’t crashed in practice in quite some time. The positive of that is I pushed the limits, I found the limits, and it won’t happen again,” Wallace told Bob Pockrass.

Thankfully, though, Wallace emerged from the crash without any injuries and was released by the infield care center.

How did the qualifying end up at Texas?

The qualifying was rather impressive for some of the drivers. Carson Hocevar, who clinched his maiden race win at Talladega last week, was on a roll as he captured pole position. While the Chevys will lead the pack when the race goes green, here is how the rest of the field will look:

It was a tough day for Austin Dillon, too, who joined Bubba Wallace at the back of the field. He had engine troubles right at the start of the practice session, and couldn’t run in qualifying.

While Wallace is in a tough spot for the race, he should be making up quite a few places, considering the confidence that he currently carries and the overall pace he has had in Texas through the years.