AVONDALE, Ariz. — Bubba Wallace said Saturday that he did nothing last weekend at Martinsville to deserve a $100,000 fine and is frustrated with NASCAR’s penalties, which will keep Bootie Barker from serving as Wallace’s crew chief for one final race.
Wallace and his team were among those penalized by NASCAR for actions at the end of last weekend’s race. NASCAR fined 23XI Racing $100,000 and 50 points, issued the same penalties to Wallace and suspended Barker, spotter Freddie Kraft and team executive Dave Rogers for Sunday’s season finale at Phoenix Raceway (coverage begins at 2 p.m. ET on NBC and Peacock).
Asked Saturday if he felt he did anything wrong, Wallace said: “No.”
Wallace admitted that he did not agree with his team’s decision not to appeal “but I understood once they broke it down,” he said. “We have to have all of our eggs in the same basket in the time invested in the right things at the right time and the right time is focusing on the championship for (teammate Tyler
Reddick) and bringing home 23XI their first championship.”
NASCAR penalized Wallace and his team for slowing on the final lap, which allowed fellow Toyota driver Christopher Bell to pass and momentarily secure the final transfer spot to the Championship 4. NASCAR penalized Bell after the race for running along the wall through Turn 4 on the last lap, dropping Bell out of the final transfer spot and putting William Byron in the title race.
Wallace said after the Martinsville race he had an issue with his car. 23XI Racing co-owner Denny Hamlin said Saturday that there was an problem with Wallace’s right rear wheel and that the tire was “completely bald.”
Had it not been for the penalty, Sunday would have been the 103rd race for Barker as Wallace’s crew chief.
They had one win and 33 top 10s together, making the playoffs in one of their three seasons together.
23XI Racing announced Oct. 30 that Barker would move to another position within the organization and that Charles Denike, who comes from the Truck Series, would be Wallace’s crew chief in 2025.
“I hate that Bootie’s last race with the 23 group has to be tarnished by (the penalty),” said Wallace, who starts 29th Sunday. “Bootie has meant a lot to me in the short amount of time I’ve gotten to be with him the last three years. He’s become one of my best friends and I told him that when we made the decision to go a different direction.”
As for the crew chief change, Wallace said: “It was brought to my attention and we had to look at what we needed to take the next steps.
“Bootie has done a tremendous job to get me and our team to where we’re at now. It was making that next step, ‘What do we need to do?’ It wasn’t an easy decision.
“I strive on a family atmosphere. I don’t know how you get more family than Bootie. To step away from that and move in a different direction is not something that I was ready to be a part of, but you have to make those decisions at some point.”
