Bubba Wallace explains strategy to try to earn playoff bid at Darlington

Because of Harrison Burton’s surprise win this weekend at Daytona, Bubba Wallace heads into Darlington essentially needing a win or a surprising points result to get into the playoffs.

Wallace currently trails the points cut line by 21 points, with Chris Buescher the last man in the field as things stand.

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The driver of the No. 23 car broke down how he’s approaching things this week in a guest appearance on the Dale Jr. Download podcast.

“It’s just showing up and me doing all that I can,” Bubba Wallace said. “Take out the outside factors. Pit stops or we call a wrong race, right? You go out and drive your best race you’ve ever had knowing that you have the people, knowing that you have the equipment and everything else will make its own way. That’s how I’m approaching it.”

Bubba Wallace has been in much better form the last few weeks, driving like his season depends on it. He’s even had shots at the win that has proven elusive this season.

Actually securing it will take his best effort this weekend. The preparation, however, starts now.

“We’ll start to get into that, a little bit of the strategy,” Wallace explained. “But kind of like Michigan, we talked on Wednesday leading into that and it’s like, ‘OK, this is a big strategy race.’ You can go for points or you can go for a win, because passing is at a low there. I said, ‘It’s simple. If you give me the car that we had two years ago at Michigan then we’re going to go for the win. And if not then we’ll go get points.’ And we fire off and we’re going to the front. So we instantly knew within the first 15, 20 laps we’re going for a win.

“So yes, we gave up points there in the first two stages, but at the end of the day we got crashed out by someone else’s mistake. So people had questions of why we were doing that. You’ve got to pick your poison. Either going for points or you’re going for a win. Some tracks you can go for both if your car is that good. Michigan’s pretty damn tough.”

Bubba Wallace could have options to choose from this weekend depending on how things shake out early. Or he could be forced to race one way and one way only: for the win.

His strategy will depend on moving parts, including information he gets before the race begins.

“Darlington is another place where strategy comes into play with the tire deg and all that stuff,” Bubba Wallace said. “One stop, two stop. So I think we just have to figure out when we unload Saturday how our Saturday goes. I think that’ll dictate a lot. But at least getting the ball rolling, getting the juices flowing on Wednesday so we’re not caught with our pants down, as they say, when that time comes around.”