Dr. Diandra: Evaluating the likelihood of a Bubba Wallace repeat at Kansas

Bubba Wallace enters this weekend hoping to repeat at Kansas Speedway. His win last fall was 23XI Racing’s second at the track: Wallace’s then-teammate Kurt Busch won the spring race.

The 23XI Racing teams were so dominant at Kansas last year that new teammate Tyler Reddick joked at Dover that he and Wallace would have to get together to decide which one of them wins which race this year.

Given that Wallace has only two top-10 finishes this year and four DNFs, should owners Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin start preparing to celebrate a Wallace repeat at Kansas Speedway?

My dominant image of Wallace this season is him berating himself after crashing out at COTA, just a week after spinning at Atlanta.

But that’s a subjective observation. Objectively, Wallace’s 2023 stats are slightly better than his 2022 numbers.

Wallace has just one top-five and two top-10 finishes, but that’s better than this time last year. Five top 15s are much improved over the two from last year.

What’s most impressive, however, is that Wallace has achieved these numbers despite four DNFs. One was mechanical (an engine failure at Fontana). Two of the other three were especially painful because they happened at Daytona and Talladega.

Wallace is a strong superspeedway driver. Last year, his average finish at the first three superspeedways was 10.7, with a best finish of second and a worst of 17th. This year, his average superspeedway finish is 25.0.

Despite the bad runs at some of his best tracks, Wallace still improved his overall average finishing position after 11 races by 0.7 positions relative to 2022 and his average running position by 0.2 positions.

Wallace earned his best finish of 2023 (fourth) at the sole intermediate track the Cup Series has