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A Day After Hard Convo With Denny Hamlin, Bubba Wallace Makes NASCAR Playoff Exit

Jared Turner Written by Sports EditorJared Turner
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Bubba Wallace

Unfortunately for Bubba Wallace, team owner Denny Hamlin’s aggressive last-lap move that cost him a victory at Kansas Speedway on September 28 proved too much to overcome.

Wallace, who would’ve earned an automatic berth in the NASCAR Cup Series Round of 8 by winning at Kansas, instead limped into Sunday’s playoff elimination race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL 26 points back of the cutline for advancing.

As widely expected, Wallace wasn’t able to win or make up that much ground at the ROVAL — a highly technical road course that historically hasn’t played to his strengths. He finished 15th. That was not nearly good enough to advance. And with Sunday’s result, the 23XI Racing driver’s hopes of winning the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series championship officially ended.

Roughly 24 hours before the green flag waved at the ROVAL, however, Wallace had a somewhat challenging conversation with team co-owner Hamlin, who competes for a different team — Joe Gibbs Racing — on race days.

The conversation, which took place on Saturday, seemed to help soothe over persisting tensions between Wallace and Hamlin after their Kansas dustup. So, from that standpoint, it was productive.

But the chat between driver and team owner sounds like it was a bit tense. At least at first.

Bubba Wallace Expressed Frustration To Boss Denny Hamlin In ‘Heart-To-Heart’ Convo

Bubba Wallace’s biggest beef with team co-owner Denny Hamlin about what played out at Kansas Speedway had little to do with how Hamlin crowded him into the wall in the final corner.

Wallace, who apparently hadn’t really talked with Hamlin since the incident, explained the biggest source of his frustration when the two chatted on Saturday at Charlotte.

The revelation took Hamlin by surprise, according to Wallace.

“It was a good, heart-to-heart conversation,” Wallace said at the ROVAL. “It came from a place of peace. And went better than I thought it would. He shared his side of things. And I shared mine. And we had common ground. I told him — and it was kind of funny — I kind of sent him on a detour when I said, ‘You can go first.’ And then five seconds in, I said, ‘Just so you know, I’m not mad about getting fenced going for the win.’

“That was two competitors going for a win. And so as much so as it didn’t work out, I have to respect that.”

What upset Wallace most of all was that Chase Elliott, in a Chevrolet, passed two Toyotas — Wallace’s and Hamlin’s — to go from third to first in the final corner and score the victory. Elliott, like Wallace and Hamlin, is a playoff driver.

“My biggest thing was Toyota didn’t win,” Wallace said. “And before I left my motorhome after the race, I texted the Toyota reps apologizing that we didn’t win. We had five (Toyotas) in the top five to take the green flag on the last restart. And none of us won.

“I just told Chase, ‘We alley oop’d that for him.’ He appreciated it. It was all of the people that got affected. That is where my frustration came from.”

Bubba Wallace Also Didn’t Appreciate How Denny Hamlin Handled The Incident In The Days After

Along with being irked about how a Chevrolet won Kansas, Bubba Wallace wasn’t pleased with the way his boss went about dealing with the situation in the week leading up to the playoff elimination race at the ROVAL.

During his “Actions Detrimental” podcast the day after Kansas, Denny Hamlin talked about the final lap and essentially why he didn’t roll over for Wallace, who held the lead going into the final corner in a car Hamlin co-owns with NBA legend Michael Jordan.

Wallace wishes he and Hamlin could have hashed out their differences early in the week, rather than letting them carry over to Saturday.

“It was just the way it was kind of handled behind the scenes. It just kept going, kept adding fuel to the fire,” Wallace said. “And I hate that it got to that point. And I expressed my displeasure to Denny (on Saturday), and he totally respected that. I’m a guy that we have confrontation, and it is not settled — like it is lingering, and now I’m in this spot where I’m 25, 26 points out.

“I expressed to him, that what you need from your driver is to be at 110 percent focused on what to do, how to execute. … I had a dark cloud over my mind all week long, man. It’s not fair to my team. I expressed that. He respected that. And, frankly, the conversation allows him to see things from a different perspective. Denny usually doesn’t do that. But it allowed him to have that opportunity.”

As for Wallace, his best opportunity to advance in the playoffs was Kansas. And he knew it.

Asked during a TV interview after the race at the ROVAL about what his car was missing on Sunday, Wallace offered a succinct response.

“Last week,” he said.

Jared Turner Written by Sports EditorJared Turner
Jared Turner is a motorsports writer who has covered NASCAR for 20 years. He has interviewed over 20 NASCAR Hall of Famers and around 100 drivers, crew chiefs, and team owners, both past and present. He has also covered the sport for FOX Sports (where he was a two-time recipient of the FOX “X” Award for “Xtraordinary” job performance), NASCAR.com, Sporting News, NASCAR Pole Position Magazine, the SPEED network, and plenty of other online and print-only publications throughout his career. Notably, Jared has penned dozens of articles for NASCAR souvenir programs, including several featured prominently in Daytona 500 keepsakes. A Virginia Press Association award winner and former member of the National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA), Jared has racked up accolades both for his writing and his academic work. He studied both Communication and Psychology at Virginia Tech, where he was permanently enshrined in Phi Beta Kappa — the nation’s oldest and most prestigious academic honor society. Jared excels at feature writing and opinion writing, much of which stems from his dedication to all levels of racing.
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