In the unforgiving world of NASCAR, where milliseconds can separate champions from also-rans, Bubba Wallace has been turning heads this season. With a new lease on life and newfound consistency that’s even impressed Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr. Much like Dale Jr.’s father, who famously found his championship stride in his 30s, Wallace seems to be hitting his prime at 31. But when Dale Jr. Download co-host Travis Rockhold suggested Wallace’s recent fatherhood might be fueling this competitive surge, Junior’s reaction was nothing short of astonishing.

Currently sitting eighth in the points standings with two top-five finishes and three top-tens through the early stages of the season, Wallace’s performance metrics don’t tell the complete story. The driver of the No. 23 Toyota for 23XI Racing has displayed a level of weekly competitiveness that statistics alone can’t capture – a fact that didn’t escape Dale Jr.’s veteran eye during a recent episode of the Dale Jr. Download.

Dale Jr.’s eye-opening assessment of Wallace’s season

“The statistics don’t do it justice,” Earnhardt emphatically stated. “The eye test to me says that Bubba’s having a better year.” What particularly impressed the two-time Daytona 500 champion wasn’t just Wallace’s results, but rather the expanded range of tracks where he’s showing speed. “Bubba always in my mind before this year had those handful of tracks where you’re like ‘Okay he could have a good run here,’” Dale explained, specifically citing Wallace’s historical strength at venues like Kansas, Talladega, and Daytona.

The shift this season, according to Earnhardt, is that Wallace’s competitiveness has become track-agnostic. “Now he’s doing it almost every week,” Dale observed. “Now he’s competitive and matching if not beating his teammate Reddick at times.” This represents a significant evolution from previous seasons when, as Dale noted, “it was more consistently Reddick outrunning him week after week.” Bubba Wallace has been running well, but the results don’t paint that picture because he has struggled to finish those good runs. He has an average start of 11.3 in 2025, second only to William Byron’s 9.3. Wallace also boasts the 4th highest average running position this year at 12.03. The pace is there, and Dale Jr. can see it.

Earnhardt attributed this transformation primarily to the organizational changes at 23XI Racing, particularly the addition of new crew chief Charles Denike. “They had a crew chief change, maybe some new ideas, new energy, new excitement around what might be, might could be,” Dale explained. He further elaborated that sometimes a personnel change isn’t necessarily about bringing in a better tactician, but rather injecting fresh perspective: “Sometimes you can change the crew chief not even be putting a better smarter guy in there, but it’s just a change – you just need a reason to be excited.” 

However, when Rockhold suggested that Wallace’s newfound fatherhood, following the birth of his son Becks Hayden with wife Amanda last September, might be contributing to his improved performance, Earnhardt’s response was both immediate and contrary. “Yeah, I don’t think that really matters,” he stated bluntly, before elaborating, “Fatherhood slows you down if anything. Becoming a father takes a lot of your risk assessment away. You start thinking about ‘Man, I don’t need to shoot for that gap.’ Fatherhood – becoming a father does not make you two-tenths quicker.” 

Tyler Reddick, the NASCAR racer who shares a team with Bubba Wallace, shared how fatherhood affects their racing activities. According to Reddick in a previous interview, he mentioned, “Fatherhood will change you in ways you don’t expect, I think he’s [Bubba Wallace] got a good approach right now and am excited to see how he continues to grow and change at being a dad and how that affects racing for him.” Wallace added his son’s footprints on the back of his helmet for every race this season, a symbolic shift in his approach toward racing.

Wallace himself has acknowledged a shift in his outlook since becoming a father. The once outspoken and sometimes volatile competitor has demonstrated newfound composure behind the wheel this season. He’s admitted that fatherhood has given him a more optimistic perspective, emphasizing that nothing outweighs “being a present father, a committed husband, and a grounded family man.” Bubba Wallace has further suggested that parenthood has lifted a weight from his shoulders, reducing the stress he previously carried into competitions.

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Dale Jr.’s love-hate relationship with “The Rock”

As Wallace continues his surge in the Cup Series, another NASCAR story has captured attention this weekend – the return of Rockingham Speedway to the NASCAR calendar. Ironically, Dale Earnhardt Jr., who shared such candid insights about Wallace’s performance, has his own complicated history with “The Rock.” On a recent episode of his podcast, Junior confessed, “I hated that place until the very last race,” recounting how he failed to break into the top 10 in his five Xfinity Series starts at the challenging one-mile oval.

His most daunting day at the track was undoubtedly during the 2001 Cup Series. After the tragic death of his father, Dale Earnhardt Sr., the previous week at the Daytona 500, the NASCAR world was left reeling. Dale Jr. entered Rockingham reluctantly, as he was not ready to make it back to the tracks again. As fate would have it, Dale Jr. crashed on the first lap. It was strikingly similar to the accident his father incurred a week earlier, and fortunately, Junior walked out safe, but Rockingham would remain a memory forever tarnished.

The NASCAR icon’s struggles at Rockingham were surprisingly persistent, with Junior finishing outside the top 10 in eight of his nine Cup Series appearances there. It wasn’t until his final race at the track in 2004 that he secured a fifth-place finish, only to have the venue promptly removed from the schedule afterward. “I just had a lot of rough days there, and then the last race, I ran fifth. I had a good car, and I felt like I’d figured it out. I was like, ‘Man, that was pretty fun.’ Then we quit going,” he reflected, revealing the frustrating timing of his breakthrough.

This weekend marks Junior’s JR Motorsports drivers’ return to “The Rock”, while Dale observes from outside the pit as he shares with the next generation the race experience that used to defy him in his driving days.