{"id":20903,"date":"2018-08-03T22:00:17","date_gmt":"2018-08-04T03:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=20903"},"modified":"2018-08-04T14:31:20","modified_gmt":"2018-08-04T19:31:20","slug":"bubba-wallace-working-hard-to-improve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2018\/08\/03\/bubba-wallace-working-hard-to-improve\/","title":{"rendered":"Bubba Wallace working hard to improve"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

Still admittedly stinging a bit from a high-speed accident at Pocono Raceway last Sunday afternoon, Monster Energy NASCAR Cup rookie Bubba Wallace<\/strong> was equal parts grateful and optimistic about rebounding from that scene and making his Cup debut Sunday on the Watkins Glen (N.Y.) road course.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Darrell Wallace Jr., driver of the #43 STP Chevrolet. (Photo by Brian Lawdermilk\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

Smiling often and even managing a joke or two when he spoke to the NASCAR<\/a> media Friday morning, Wallace, 24, sounded like his old self and reported that while he was still a little sore from the accident at Pocono, his mindset had already moved forward to what it will take to score a good finish in Sunday\u2019s GoBowling at the Glen (3 p.m., NBC, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a tough one to watch, but man we hit a ton,\u2019\u2019 Wallace said of his single car accident at Pocono, 11 laps from the finish. \u201cAnd it\u2019s good to be able to come away and walk away from that and just know that I had a lot of people\u2019s support. That was pretty cool as well. I think that was obviously a big highlight for me was just getting out and seeing everybody reaching out and showing their levels of concern.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wallace, who said he had only a bruise and sore foot from the accident, is hopeful that concern from last week turns into positive vibes for this week as the Richard Petty Motorsports driver prepares for his first Cup experience on the historic 2.54-mile road course in scenic upstate New York. To ready himself Wallace is also scheduled to race in Friday afternoon\u2019s NASCAR K&N Pro Series East race \u2013 something he seemed really excited to participate in.<\/p>\n

Bubba Wallace Jr. – <\/p>\nhttp:\/\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/WGI_MENCS_Wallace_080318.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019ll be fun, it\u2019s going back,\u2019\u2019 said Wallace, who last raced in the K&N Pro Series in 2012. \u201cWe\u2019ll see how it shakes out and go beat up on some little kids or get my butt whooped by some little kids. We\u2019ll see.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Wallace said he is genuinely hopeful the extra time on track will translate into a better showing on Sunday. He started 35th<\/sup> <\/span>and finished 29th<\/sup> <\/span>at Sonoma Raceway, the Cup Series\u2019 other road course, earlier this season. He has three top-10s at road courses in the NASCAR Xfinity Series \u2013 all coming at Mid-Ohio and Road America \u2013 the best showing was a fifth at Road America in 2015. He had a fourth-place finish at the Canadian Tire Motorsports Park road course in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series in 2013.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean you can watch the races and see what kind of moves they made, but trying to pick on-throttle time, braking points, and everything, that\u2019s kind of hard to do,\u2019\u2019 Wallace explained of his decision to run the K&N race at Watkins Glen. \u201cSo, I\u2019m just going to go out and figure it all out. I\u2019ve got Will Rodgers as a teammate. He is badass on the road courses, so I\u2019m sure I\u2019ll pick his brain before we get going. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026I looked at Sonoma and I\u2019m like I\u2019ve got to do something to be better than we were at Sonoma. So I took matter matters into my own hands and I\u2019m thankful for [sponsor] Sunoco stepping up and helping to foot the bill a little bit, but I\u2019m just trying to learn for Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wallace is hopeful for a positive showing this week, eager to get closer to his expectation level. After a fantastic and historic runner-up in the season-opening Daytona 500, Wallace and his RPM team have had to regroup and go through the learning curve expected of any rookie \u2013 no matter the talent level.<\/p>\n

He answered with another top-10 (eighth) at Texas Motor Speedway in April, but has had only three top-20 finishes in the last 10 races. The two summer Pocono stops, in particular, were rough. He had engine problems and finished 38th<\/sup> <\/span>in the June race and then the accident last Sunday left him with a 33rd <\/sup> <\/sup><\/span>place result.<\/p>\n

One of the most popular, candid and driven competitors in the Cup garage, Wallace reiterated that one thing he has learned quickly this year is that you have to adjust expectations throughout the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou definitely change them up as you go,\u2019\u2019 Wallace said. \u201cComing into this season we didn\u2019t know where we were going to stack up at first, so we said 8th<\/sup> <\/span>to 12th<\/sup> <\/span>was our range. And I thought that\u2019s good, especially coming off last year and how we ran.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then when we started getting into the races and we weren\u2019t really finding ourselves barely inside the top-20 so it\u2019s like okay, we re-adjust. Once that started becoming unfortunately the norm, it\u2019s like okay, so we\u2019re going to fight for top 20\u2019s and those are going to be really good days for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course driving for a seven-time champion, 200-race winner and NASCAR\u2019s most famous icon in Petty certainly increases the spotlight and raises the expectations to a certain extent, even for a rookie driver. Wallace is keenly aware of that, but he has high hopes as well and remains confident this team has all the makings to be competitive. It\u2019s just been a learning process.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had expectations,\u2019\u2019 Wallace said. \u201cWe haven\u2019t really met them at all. I\u2019ve kind of scaled back. I think the \u2018King\u2019 is still on that 8th<\/sup> <\/span>to 12th<\/sup>, and like \u2018why aren\u2019t we running 8th<\/sup> <\/span>to 12th<\/sup>?\u2019  We\u2019re trying.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut. \u2026it\u2019s a rookie year in Cup. We\u2019re going to go through the struggles but none of us obviously thought we would be so far behind the eight ball. But what\u2019s cool to see is that we show up to the shop each and every week, and show up at the race track every week, and our guys are still digging hard, 100 percent, a 110 percent effort, trying to find something.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd each weekend it\u2019s like all right, we think we\u2019ve got something really good for this weekend. Hopefully it translates into something. Sometimes it doesn\u2019t, but at least we\u2019re trying things and we\u2019re not just sitting there with our heads in our laps just saying, well, we\u2019ll see how it goes next weekend. We continue to push the efforts to try and get better.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service Still admittedly stinging a bit from a high-speed accident at Pocono Raceway last Sunday afternoon, Monster Energy NASCAR Cup rookie Bubba Wallace was equal parts grateful and optimistic about rebounding from that scene and making his Cup debut Sunday on the Watkins Glen (N.Y.) road course. Smiling often and even […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":18456,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[473,16,472],"class_list":["post-20903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-darrell-wallace-jr","tag-nascar","tag-watkins-glen-international"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/MS-MENCS-Wallace-032418.jpg?fit=3159%2C2106&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-5r9","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20903"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20931,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20903\/revisions\/20931"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}