Dale Earnhardt Jr. evaluates Bubba Wallace's 2025 NASCAR season

Bubba Wallace has quietly been having a more than solid start to the 2025 season. NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr. has taken notice of the 31-year old’s stark improvement.

Heading into the bye week for Easter Sunday, Wallace is eighth in the Cup Series standings. He’s accumulated two top fives, three top tens and 98 laps led, while also have two DNFs. That goes to show how consistent he’s been when on the track, and Earnhardt Jr. evaluated where the 23XI Racing wheelman stands on the latest episode of the Dale Jr. Download.

“The statistics don’t do it justice. The eye test, to me, says that Bubba is having a better year,” Earnhardt Jr. proclaimed. “Bubba always, in my mind, before this year, Bubba had that handful of tracks where, ‘Okay, he could have a good run here. He does have some history of running good at Kansas, Talladega, Daytona,’ you know, he has certain places where it’s like, ‘Alright, not surprised to see him win or run in the top five.’ Now he’s doing it almost every week. Now he’s competitive, and matching, if not beating, his teammate [Tyler] Reddick at times.

“More consistently, Reddick was outrunning him every week. But now they’ve had a crew chief change. Some new ideas, new energy, new excitement around what could be. Sometimes you can change the crew chief, not even putting a better, smarter guy in there, but it’s just the change. You just need a reason to be excited.”

What else has changed besides Wallace’s crew chief? Well, he’s become a father. Earnhardt Jr. doesn’t believe that’s helped him on the track though. Wallace is performing in spite of that accomplishment, according to the two-time Daytona 500 winner.

“I don’t think that really matters. Fatherhood slows you down. If anything, becoming a father takes a lot of your risk assessment away,” Earnhardt Jr. added. “You start thinking about, ‘Man, I don’t need to shoot for that gap.’ Fatherhood, becoming a father does not make you two-tenths quicker.”

Moving forward, it’ll be all about getting Wallace to Victory Lane for the No. 23 team. As they know well and good, winning is what locks you into the Cup Series playoffs, and that’s the only way they’ll truly feel safe, even if they keep accumulating points over the next couple of months.

There’s a couple of tracks coming up where Bubba Wallace will be a major threat, like Kansas Speedway on May 11. Time will tell if he can get it done, but Dale Earnhardt Jr. will be watching with a keen eye.