Bubba Wallace capped off a landmark 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season with his thrilling Brickyard 400 victory at Indianapolis in July, snapping a long winless streak and claiming one of the sport’s crown-jewel races.
Despite a strong regular season that included a career-high 378 laps led (a personal best), six top-fives, and 14 top-10s, Wallace finished 11th in the final standings.
He made the playoffs for the second time, but fell short of his own expectations. Wallace advanced to the Round of 12 but was eliminated short of the Round of 8, missing a chance to go deeper after a heartbreaking incident at Kansas – his boss and teammate Denny Hamlin‘s late move sent him into the wall, costing him the win and handing it to Chase Elliott in a controversial finish.
Reflecting on the year, Wallace emphasized the positives over the playoff disappointment.
“I’d call it a successful season, for sure,” he said, according to Racer.
Bubba Wallace having fun again
The polarizing NASCAR driver seemed to downplay his victory in the Brickyard 400, calling it “just another win.”
“It’s cool to have the Brickyard 400 behind your name, for sure. But honestly, I felt like I was going out to win a late model race or something,” he contends.
Still, Bubba credited a renewed mindset with his new crew chief, Charles Denike, for bringing back the joy. Wallace says it’s actually been fun showing up to the track with chances to win nearly every week.
“It’s been a lot of fun to show up at the racetrack with a new mindset, and having an opportunity to win just about every week is what you want,” he said. “You keep throwing your name in the hat – I’ve always said it – they’ll eventually pull it.”
“It’s been fun. It goes back to what I told Charles when we met for the first time, ‘Man, I want to have fun when we go to the racetrack,’ and we’ve been doing just that,” added Wallace. “So, I appreciate him.”
As he heads into 2026 with 23XI Racing, Wallace is optimistic, suggesting he’ll be in the mix for more victories ahead.
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Hasn’t always been like this
He hasn’t always been this chill, of course, but Bubba Wallace’s renewed focus on having fun is a welcome sight. He’ll forever be remembered as a controversial figure who heavily weighed in on the political and racial landscape of the country by promoting a “noose” hoax in 2020.
While Wallace didn’t report the alleged hate crime himself, he certainly played up stories that he had been the victim of said hate crime. The FBI investigated the incident and determined it was actually a garage door pulldown that had been there for over a year and that there was, in fact, no hate crime.
But he’s left that world behind now, it seems.
Bubba Wallace has attributed his new toned-down approach to racing and life to stepping away from social media and avoiding “toxic comments” from NASCAR fans.
That’s a good move for anybody in today’s chaotic world, even more so for a man who recently became a father. Wallace welcomed his son Becks back in September of 2024. This was the first child of Wallace and his wife, Amanda, whom he married on New Year’s Eve in 2022.
A successful life is far more important than any particular season on the track. He finally seems to be having fun outside the s well.