Bubba Wallace’s and Tyler Reddick’s fourth- and fifth-place finishes in Monday’s rain-delayed Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway marked the first time both 23XI Racing drivers have placed in the top five in a points paying race.
However, the two experienced drastically different events before the checkered flag waved.
“This was probably the dirtiest race we’ve ever had as far as us executing,” Wallace said.
There was an uncontrolled tire on pit road, Wallace’s Toyota was knocked off the jack by Michael McDowell’s Ford during a pit stop, and Wallace was shoved by Aric Almirola when confronted on pit road during a rain delay. Wallace chalked the confrontation up to “passion” and said he wasn’t surprised at Almirola’s reaction.
Almirola said he confronted Wallace because he felt he ran him all over the race track and when he passed him he “shot me the bird.”
“I just went by and asked him why you shot me the bird,” said Almirola, who finished 25th. “I felt like I gave him a lot of room and a lot of respect, and he started mouthing off and saying a lot of bad things and cussing at me after he shot me the bird, so I just wasn’t gonna take that.”
Almirola believes it’s over because he “got his point across” to Wallace.
Despite the issues, Wallace now has four top-five finishes, including three straight, this season. He also finished second in the NASCAR All-Star race.
“We’re hitting our stride,” Wallace said. “You can’t get complacent. The thing I love about racing is you get to show up and it’s a new opportunity, a fresh set of downs and you go out and compete.”
The race was going well for Reddick before he spun off turn four and then later collided with Kevin Harvick on lap 358 and sent Harvick spinning through the frontstretch apron. He said when he hit the wall with his Toyota, he “watched the life fade away” from his race car.
“Our car was really, really strong, so fifth place just doesn’t cut it,” said Reddick, who led once for 28 laps. “The car had a tremendous amount of speed and handling pretty much from the drop of the green flag. We were just one spot short it seemed like most of the day from being where we needed to be.”
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