Freddie Kraft and his DBC team consider Bubba Wallace’s accident at Dover as a racing incident. After a slow start to the season, Wallace showed improvement in consecutive races up to Talladega and put himself in a favorable position. However, the last two races have been a disastrous nightmare for him as he failed to finish in both. At Dega, he was involved in an accident with Toyota cars, and at Dover last Sunday, he was taken out by another driver. While trying to pass Zane Smith, Wallace was spun from behind and ended up collecting other cars, resulting in all three cars not finishing the race. These consecutive DNFs cost him his position in the top-16 in the championship points standings. Now, the spotter for the Toyota Camry No:23 revealed who should be blamed for the accident.
The spotter pointed out that Zane Smith had no choice but to take the action he took at Dover. If he had backed off, there was a high chance he would be rear-ended. The spotter humorously stated that the person who posted on social media claiming that No:23 had the best DNF record on the current grid is the real culprit.
Freddie Kraft, speaking on the Door Bumper Clear podcast, said, “If Zane tries to get out of that situation, it’s not like we’re at the back of the pack, he’s going to get run over from behind by somebody else. I can tell you whose fault it is, it’s the person who tweeted two weeks ago that we had the longest DNF streak because now we have two in a row.”
Before Kraft gave his verdict, the veteran spotter pointed out that no one can be blamed for the incident. He admitted that Smith made a mistake by not lifting off the throttle after Tyler Reddick lost control in front of him, but he was just being a race car driver and doing what he had to do.
Tyler loses control again and Zane is sort of moving closer to stand beside him, it seemed to me almost as if he was trying to cut the air, that’s when Zane made a mistake. I don’t think it was anyone’s fault. I think Zane put himself in a bad situation and didn’t try to get out of it. He tried to remain a race car driver in that specific situation and just needed to give up what he was going to lose.
Bubba Wallace will have a great chance to return to victory lane this weekend in Kansas. He won his last and second career race at the track in 2022, and 23XI has won three races at the track so far in the Next-Gen era. So, he has a genuine opportunity to win if he can maintain consistency.
