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What started as caution-filled game of survival turned into a rising team’s crowning achievement.
After running top-five all day long, Bubba Wallace got by Alex Bowman on lap 225 and never looked back, cruising to win the Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway. It’s the second win of his career and 23XI Racing’s second straight triumph at the 1.5-mile track.
Wallace’s first win came with a bit of asterisk to some last year, having come a rain-shortened victory at Talladega. He made sure to leave no doubt in anyone’s mind today.
“It’s a step in the right direction,” Wallace said. “We’ve got to keep going.”
Wallace becomes the 18th different winner through 28 races. The win comes a week after Erik Jones won the Southern 500, making 2022 the first year where non-playoff drivers have swept the first two playoff races.
“I said at Sonoma that ‘there’s no freaking way that we even get to 14,’” said team owner Denny Hamlin. “It’s great for the product.”
After Toyota put all six cars in the top-10 in May’s Kansas race, expectations were that they’d be the team to beat again. Chevrolet had different ideas early on as Tyler Reddick and Alex Bowman dominated the majority of the first 65 laps. That changed when Reddick, who was leading at the time, suffered one of many right rear tires on the day, ending his race and saddling him back in 35th.
The first half of the race saw hectic restarts amongst the playoff drivers. With three-wide racing throughout the field, a wreck was inevitable. It came when Kevin Harvick slapped the wall after getting aero-tight behind Daniel Suarez and Ross Chastain. After a mechanical fire at Darlington, Harvick likely will need a win at Bristol to advance.
With nine cautions through the first two stages, it would’ve been a stretch to predict that stage three would go green. However that’s what ended up happening. Early on, it looked like Bowman was going to run away with it.
It was a needed boost for Bowman, who led a race-high 107 laps and won his first stage since Las Vegas in March.
“We’ve been really good at intermediates,” Bowman said. “We had a really good day.”
While Bowman led, it was Wallace who made his way to second after a three-wide pass on Hendrick teammates Kyle Larson and William Byron. It didn’t take long for him to hunt down Bowman before diving to the bottom of turns 3-4 for the lead.
From there, Wallace got a good pit stop from his crew that’s been much maligned throughout the year, before holding on to hold off Hamlin by 1.000 seconds. Christopher Bell, Bowman and Martin Truex Jr. rounded out the top-five.
It was a vindicating win for Wallace after what happened in May. Wallace had a car arguably faster than his teammate Kurt Busch, who went on to win as Wallace suffered from pit road woes and was relegated to a top-10 finish.
“I’m selfish and I think we were better than the 45,” Wallace said. “You hate that you were in that scenario in the first race but it makes you stronger.”
With Wallace driving the no. 45 car for Ku. Busch, the team advances in the owners points playoffs. However, no driver is officially locked into the second round yet. Austin Cindric and Tyler Reddick are tied for 11th in points, as Kyle Busch, Austin Dillon, Chase Briscoe and Harvick find themselves on the outside looking in.
“I’m surprised, but it’s 2022,” said Bell, who leaves Kansas with the points lead. “It doesn’t surprise me that [Wallace] won.”
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