Former NASCAR Champion ‘Concerned’ About Bubba Wallace originally appeared on The Spun.

The 2025 season hasn’t been great for Bubba Wallace, but it didn’t truly become a disaster until last Sunday at Pocono Raceway.

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Wallace’s weekend started off with him failing to run a qualifying lap because the hot rod for his No. 23 Toyota wouldn’t fire. Any hope of him making a miraculous run up the leaderboard was derailed when he suffered a brake failure.

Unfortunately for Wallace, he has failed to finish six of 17 races this season.

“That was the most frustrated I’ve been in a long time,” Wallace said. “That was like a gut punch … really hard to swallow. Yeah, it’s qualifying … whatever. But it took me back to like a-few-years-ago Bubba, where it’s like, yeah, here we go. You ride on the momentum high and you get excited and have some optimism, and then you’re just smacked in the face with some B-S.”

Even though Wallace has time to turn his rough season around, some people are convinced it’s just not meant to be for him and 23XI Racing.

Former NASCAR driver Kevin Harvick isn’t ready to write off Wallace just yet, but he admit he’s concerned about his recent performances.

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“I would say there are some concerns about the 23XI speed in general,” Harvick said, via On3. “I don’t think Reddick has been as fast; I think Bubba started really well and has been kind of average in a lot of the most recent weeks.”

Wallace has a chance to redeem himself this Saturday at Atlanta Moto Speedway. He’s entering this weekend’s race with a positive mindset.

“We’ll get out of this little slump that we’re in and get back on the momentum train,” Wallace told reporters.

As of this weekend, Wallace is 14th in the Cup Series standings.

Related: There Are Growing Calls For 23XI Racing To Get Rid Of Bubba Wallace

Former NASCAR Champion ‘Concerned’ About Bubba Wallace first appeared on The Spun on Jun 28, 2025

This story was originally reported by The Spun on Jun 28, 2025, where it first appeared.

Just two tracks are on the 26-race 2025 NASCAR Cup Series regular season schedule twice, and one of them is Atlanta Motor Speedway. Atlanta, which is now officially known as EchoPark Speedway for sponsorship purposes, hosted the season’s second race back in February, and now it is the host of race number 18 this Saturday night.

The Quaker State 400 is a 260-lap race around the four-turn, 1.54-mile (2.478-kilometer) Hampton, Georgia oval. Last year’s race was a playoff race, but the race has shifted back to July, which is where it had been since getting its second date back in 2021. This year’s race also kicks off NASCAR’s inaugural five-race in-season tournament.

The only other track on the regular season schedule twice is Daytona International Speedway, which hosted the season-opening Daytona 500 a week before Atlanta’s first race of the year and is also scheduled to host the regular season finale in August.

Atlanta, since its post-2021 repave and reconfiguration, is considered a superspeedway like Daytona and Talladega Superspeedway, since it races much more like a superspeedway than a typical mile-and-a-half oval.

Team Penske’s Joey Logano took the pole position for Saturday night’s Quaker State 400 in Friday evening’s qualifying session, and Wood Brothers Racing’s Josh Berry joined him on the front row.

A full starting lineup can be found here.

Follow along with our race updates, specifically the updates of the first two stages and the race itself.

NASCAR at Atlanta: Stage 1 results

NASCAR at Atlanta: Stage 2 results

NASCAR at Atlanta: Full Quaker State 400 results

When it comes to a perfect race, they don’t get much better than what Corey Heim did on Saturday in the inaugural NASCAR Truck race at Lime Rock Park. He started from pole, posted the fastest lap, won both stages, and led 99 of 100 laps on his way to capturing the checkered flag. Layne Riggs led one lap as he nosed ahead of Heim (briefly) on a restart.

Heim now has 16 career wins in the Truck Series, which is tenth on the all-time wins list.

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“It was nothing short of incredible, man,” said Heim. “These are the races I really look forward to. I prepare pretty hard for them and to see that all pay off is super special. The truck was so good today. I can’t complain one bit about that. Flawless day. We’ll take that and move forward.”

Ty Majeski finished second, Gio Ruggiero third, Ben Rhodes fourth, and Australian Supercars star Cam Waters rounded out the top five. Chandler Smith was sixth, Josh Bilicki seventh, Brent Crews eighth, Daniel Hemric ninth, and Tyler Ankrum tenth.

The final stage was delayed due to one truck leaking fluid, forcing a brief red flag. Once things got back rolling, Heim remained fully in control with Riggs second and Mosack moving up to third as Taylor slipped back.

Matt Crafton went off track and made an unscheduled pit stop as a result but again, there was no need for a full-course yellow. Dawson Sutton was also forced to limp back to the pits after suffering a cut tire.

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It looked like the race might go caution-free, but Matt Mills got stuck off-track with just 11 laps to go, causing the first natural yellow of the race.

That restart ended up being the most hectic as Jordan Taylor lost control and spun from inside the top five. A couple other trucks were collected including his teammate Rajah Caruth, but the race remained green and Heim escaped the chaos unscathed. Taylor, who had run inside the top five all day, ended up 20th due to the late-race spin.

Stages 1 and 2

Rajah Caruth, Spire Motorsports Chevrolet

The race was remarkably clean with Heim leading the way from the very start. The No. 11 TRICON Toyota was unstoppable, never truly relinquishing control of the race.

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Spencer Boyd was the first incident of the 100-lapper, spinning off into the grass before carrying on. Heim earned the Stage 1 win with over seven seconds between himself and Layne Riggs with IMSA star Jordan Taylor in third.

The second stage was much of the same with no notable incidents and Heim again driving off with the stage win. Riggs remained second and Taylor third. Passing appeared to be very difficult around the small road course.

Read Also:

Jordan Taylor returns to NASCAR – along with alter ego ‘Rodney Sandstorm’

Nick Sanchez spun, then won in frantic NASCAR Xfinity race at Atlanta

Shocking restart pileup collects ten NASCAR Xfinity cars after weather delay

Joey Logano earns NASCAR Cup pole in a tie as Ford dominates Atlanta qualifying

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Corey LaJoie is a race-car driver again. 

Before last Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series event at Pocono Raceway, Chase Briscoe was part of a small minority of drivers keeping a close eye on potential seeding for the In-Season Challenge, which starts Saturday night with the Quaker State 400 at EchoPark Speedway (7 p.m. ET on TNT, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

The standings before the Pocono race would have paired Briscoe against fellow Toyota driver Tyler Reddick, a matchup the driver of the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota said he would prefer to avoid.

“Right now, I’d go against Tyler if it started this weekend,” Briscoe said at the time. “I’m hoping that changes, because Tyler… I think he’s seeded like 22nd right now, and he’s one of the top five guys in the sport.

“So, it would be a tough Round 1, but honestly, the seeding is tough because at Atlanta anybody could be hard to beat. I feel like at Atlanta you don’t want to go against somebody in your manufacturer (group), because you’re all normally on the same strategy.”

Briscoe, of course, claimed his first victory of the season later that afternoon and dramatically altered his position in the In-Season Challenge bracket. With the win, he earned the second seed behind Michigan winner Denny Hamlin and will face Front Row Motorsports’ Noah Gragson in the first round of the inaugural tournament.

Interestingly, Gragson is the favorite driver of Briscoe’s 3-year-old son Brooks.

He’s also one of Briscoe’s closest friends and may prove as formidable an opponent as Reddick would have been.

“Honestly, I feel like here at a superspeedway, we’ve seen how good the Fords are, and going against a Ford here is certainly a hard challenge,” Briscoe said. “This is one of those race tracks that, no matter what team you are with, you kind of have a shot to go and win.

“It’s no secret, right? Noah is not at one of the powerhouse teams, but when he comes here, he can be right here in the mix. Front Row (Motorsports) cars qualified on the front row here last year, so it will be a challenge.”