It looked like NASCAR Cup Series star Bubba Wallace was set up perfectly to potentially win the Cola-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway this weekend, slated to start seventh in the race. However, some controversy arose on Saturday after Wallace’s car failed tech inspection on multiple occasions.
Wallace and the 23XI Racing have been performing very well as of late. He is coming off back-to-back top-five finishes at Kansas Speedway and Darlington Raceway. Unfortunately, his weekend didn’t get off to a great start during Saturday’s car inspections.
Bob Pockrass of Fox Sports reported that Wallace’s car failed inspection twice. He added that this is the first time that he has seen a car fail twice.
Cup tech appears complete. Don't have official report from NASCAR yet but Bubba Wallace car failed twice and had car chief ejected. That was the only two-time failure I saw.
— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) May 27, 2023
This will result in several penalties that could certainly impact him during Sunday’s race.
NASCAR officials barred car chief Zachary Marquardt for the remainder of the weekend. The team will also lose its pit selection for Sunday’s race, which could come back to bite them since it is the longest of the NASCAR Cup Series schedule.
This is unfortunately an issue that has plagued 23XI Racing as of late. It is the third consecutive points race in which 23XI Racing has seen one of its teams fail pre-race inspection.
Bubba Wallace will now have to overcome some pretty big obstacles at a race track that he hasn’t exactly had success at in the past. He has had six career starts at Charlotte, where his best finish was 14th place back in 2021.
[Bob Pockrass on Twitter, NASCAR.com]
