Round 3 of NASCAR’s In-Season Challenge starts this weekend, and we are now down to eight lucky drivers in the Cup Series garage. However, getting from 16 to 8 entailed plenty of chaos, and Bubba Wallace and Alex Bowman wrote one chapter of that chaotic story. These rivals, who have professed their animosity multiple times on the racetrack before, drew raised eyebrows from veterans, including Kyle Busch.

Rowdy’s fortune in the In-Season Challenge was not so impressive. He got knocked out in Round 1 at Atlanta by Brad Keselowski, who finished 2nd, while Busch finished 21st after getting caught up in a big wreck. However, Kyle Busch is prepared to forget about his lost tournament chances for the bigger picture. And he urges two heated rivals to do the same.

Kyle Busch tries to offer a vision

Well, it is not like Alex Bowman and Bubba Wallace clashed for the first time. Their issues sprang for the first time in 2019 when Bowman spun out Wallace in Turn 2 at the Charlotte Roval. That feud ended with Wallace splashing water on Bowman’s face. Then, fast forward to 2024, and things took a grim turn. After on-race contact initiated by Bowman, Wallace door-slammed his rival on the cool-down lap and incurred a hefty penalty. Despite being paired up with each other for the In-Season Challenge last weekend, it looked like the 23XI Racing driver and the Hendrick Motorsports driver just needed an excuse to get rough again. That is what Kyle Busch believes.

The two-time Cup Series champion spoke in a recent Sirius XM NASCAR Radio episode. “In Bubba’s mind, it had to have been a little bit that him and Bowman were going against each other for the bracket challenge for the weekend. And so he was trying to hold back the 48 [Alex Bowman] as much as he could, even though the 48 was on fresher tires and just block them… They were being rough with one another literally for that.”

Ultimately, the two rivals ignored the bigger picture of making the playoffs, as Kyle Busch continued. “You got to finish too, right? Like there’s a race within a race, but you’ve got to focus on the bigger grand scheme of things, which is going out there and finishing the race and being able to score as many points as he can. If you’re not gonna win, he wants to point his way into the playoffs obviously.”

Both Wallace and Alex Bowman sit above the playoff cut line, but not by that much. The Hendrick Motorsports #48 sits +39, and that comes after a string of positive finishes following a tumultuous three-race stretch after the All-Star break that saw him finish 29, 36, and 36. Bowman’s strong turnaround to finish in the top 10 in 3 of his last four races has propelled him back in contention. Meanwhile, Wallace faces a more uphill battle.

Bubba Wallace has had an inconsistent season yet again. The 23XI Racing #23 has 3 top-5 and six top-10 finishes but also accrued 6 DNFs with an average finish of 19.29. Wallace has accrued stage points at a consistent clip, but struggles to get strong finishes. Besides his consecutive top-5s at Homestead and Martinsville, the #23 has struggled for speed, and that’s why he sits just +2 on the cut line, dangerously close to losing a spot. This is why Kyle Busch felt that a bigger goal was lost in the haze of the In-Season Challenge, as Alex Bowman finished 8th, while Bubba Wallace washed up in 28th place, when he could have played it calm and settled for a top-15 behind Bowman instead.

Hence, things were worse for the 23XI Racing star, who has not won a race since 2022. Kyle Busch continued that their post-race peace conversation may not have meant much, considering their history of aggression. Busch said, “It looked afterwards like it was no hard feelings because Bubba basically said that, right? Like, ‘Hey, I was running you rough, I was running you hard, I was trying to block you, hanging on for dear life.’ So there wasn’t as much drama afterwards as people would have thought… I don’t think those two really like each other all that well. There’s been a few times over the years they’ve run over one another.”

Clearly, the fiasco in Chicago looked like a repetition of earlier events to Kyle Busch. Yet that may be rubbing salt on Bubba Wallace’s wounds right now.

The house is crumbling

Everyone knew what a risk Michael Jordan was taking in October 2024. The 23XI Racing owner, along with Front Row Motorsports, did not sign the charter deal and also sued NASCAR. They risked losing their own security until a judge guaranteed them charter safety for 2025. In early June, however, a new three-panel judge slapped them with the claim: “You can’t have the cake and eat it too.”

In other words, Jordan and Co. cannot sue NASCAR’s charter system and accrue its benefits as well. Hence, the preliminary injunction that guaranteed the teams’ safety has been overturned. An appeal against the same at the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has also been in vain, putting Bubba Wallace and his colleagues in a tough spot. Technically, both 23XI Racing and Front Row could lose their charters by NASCAR’s Cup race in Dover. This would mean 23XI Racing’s Bubba Wallace, Riley Herbst, and Tyler Reddick would be competing in open seats, stripped of the millions of dollars in benefits that charters bring.

On being asked about the ordeal in June, Wallace directed comments at 23XI co-owner Denny Hamlin. “Everything’s great. You know the answer already. You can let Denny [Hamlin] comment on that stuff. You’re not going to get an answer that you want to hear from me.” His teammate, Tyler Reddick, was also tight-lipped: “I’m just going to keep doing my part to try and show up as prepared as possible and continue winning races.”

Clearly, Bubba Wallace has a ton of other things to worry about than his ongoing rivalry. Hopefully, he pays heed to Kyle Busch’s golden advice and looks to clinch a playoff seat soon.