Bubba Wallace has been down on his luck since the get-go of the 2023 season, a trend that’s stuck like glue into the playoffs. Remarkably, he barely scraped through to the playoffs by the skin of his teeth. But the prodigy of Michael Jordan has struggled to hit his stride in the first two playoff races.

Despite it seeming more like he’s been dealt a bad hand than a dip in performance, sitting 19 points below the cut line isn’t doing him any favors in the race to the top 12. Yet whispers in the NASCAR circuit hint that it’s not just a string of mishaps or Wallace’s performance. The high-flying team helmed by legends Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin might also be sharing a piece of the pie in the driver’s misfortunes.

NASCAR insider finds fault in regular season for Michael Jordan’s prodigy’s shortcomings in the playoffs

Up until the final stretch at Daytona, Bubba Wallace and his crew were on tenterhooks, not knowing if their place in the playoffs was secured. Chris Buescher’s victory shook things up, making Wallace’s playoff dreams a reality. But it appears the team may have counted their chickens before they hatched, not realizing the uphill battle they’d face in the playoffs.

The wunderkind of Michael Jordan clinched his playoff spot through a smart strategy: racking up stage points to keep their playoff hopes alive. But with heavy hitters like Martin Truex Jr., the regular season champ, teetering on the brink at Bristol, it’s clear the playoff waters aren’t that smooth.

Word on the street is that the hiccups also stem from Denny Hamlin’s 23XI Racing team burning the candle at both ends during the regular season, leaving them running on fumes come playoff time.

As Fox Sports’ Adam Alexander quipped, “We had so many people—people far smarter than me, our analysts—that just felt like they put so much into the stretch run of the regular season to make it into the playoffs that once we got into the playoffs, Darlington and beyond, the 23 teams would be out of gas.”

While there’s some merit to this viewpoint, it begs the question: why would a team so hungry for playoff action potentially sabotage their deeper run? Could Wallace’s crew chief’s absence be one of the reasons? Besides that, given Wallace’s shaky past performance at Bristol, he might already be on the way out.

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Bubba Wallace and Bristol Speedway have always been like oil and water

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For Wallace to punch his ticket into the top 12, he needs to knock it out of the park at Bristol. Yet, in a lineup of racers like Martin Truex Jr., Ricky Stenhouse Jr., and Michael McDowell, only Stenhouse has a good track record in Bristol. Wallace’s Bristol dances, on the other hand, usually see him finishing in the long grass.

Truex is currently hot on the heels of the cutoff, trailing by a mere seven points. If he can navigate Bristol’s winding road without a hitch, the odds are stacked in his favor to rack up enough points to edge over the cut line. For Wallace, it’s a do-or-die situation; only a win can throw him a lifeline.

Fans of Denny Hamlin and Bubba Wallace will be hoping for a stroke of luck and cheering for Wallace to do something magical at the race. However, one thing’s for sure: the final race of the first playoff round is set to be a rollercoaster of emotions!

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