Corey Heim said Wednesday that NASCAR teammate Bubba Wallace has moved past the Phoenix speeding penalty that cost him a shot at his first win of 2026, and 23XI Racing is heading to Talladega with fresh optimism.
Wallace led 52 laps Sunday, his most in any race this season, yet left Phoenix winless once again, which leaves the team one week to regroup before the unpredictable YellaWood 500.
“I think it’s really optimistic, especially after Tyler was able to get back to victory lane,” Heim said Wednesday on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, as quoted by On3‘s Jamie Oakes.
Tyler Reddick of 23XI won Sunday’s Freeway Insurance 500, his sixth victory of 2026 and the end of a 23-race winless stretch, according to NASCAR.com. Heim finished fifth.
Bubba Wallace’s Phoenix Speeding Penalty
“Same with Bubba, I mean, he’s had great speed, but one thing or another will happen and they just aren’t able to close these things out,” Heim said.
A caution for Kyle Larson’s crash sent the leaders to pit road with 27 laps remaining. Wallace took four tires, left in sixth place and drew a pit road speeding penalty that dropped him out of the top 10. He finished 17th and remains winless since the Brickyard 400 in 2025, according to RACER‘s Kelly Crandall.
“Our team is so good at finding all the gray areas to operate in and find our limits, and I think I exposed it a little bit too much around the corner,” Wallace said. “Corner pitting is really, really tough … just with the lack of visibility that you have.”
“I hate it for our team,” Wallace continued. “It’s been really fun driving Toyotas this year, but I just can’t seem to close the deal out. Three more to go.”
Heim saw a different mood in the shop this week.
“You can just tell he’s so refreshed to have a winning race car at Phoenix with that place kind of being a trouble area for 23XI in the past,” Heim said.
23XI Racing Outlook for Talladega
Reddick now sits seventh in the Chase standings, 56 points behind leader Larson.
“If we can have a calm ’Dega, get stage points, finish with a car in one piece, I think we’ll have another good points day,” Reddick said, according to the NASCAR Wire Service.
Heim will not be in the Cup field Sunday.
“At the end of the day, it is Talladega, so we’ll see what happens,” he said.
Wallace was born Oct. 8, 1993, in Mobile, Alabama, and raised in Concord, North Carolina. By age 12, he had won 35 races in an entry-level Bandolero series. He made his Cup debut in 2017 with Richard Petty Motorsports and joined 23XI Racing, co-owned by Denny Hamlin and Michael Jordan, in 2021.
That October, Wallace won the YellaWood 500 at Talladega, the first Cup victory by a Black driver since Wendell Scott in 1963. He added a Kansas win in 2022 and the 2025 Brickyard 400.
Heim was born July 5, 2002, and is a Marietta, Georgia, native, according to the Marietta Daily Journal. He won the 2025 Craftsman Truck Series title with a record 12 victories, and 23XI plans to move him to the No. 35 Toyota full time in 2027, according to NASCAR.com.
Heim won his first Cup race June 21 at Naval Base Coronado, finishing 10.365 seconds ahead of Wallace in 23XI’s first 1-2 finish, according to Engine Builder Magazine.
The YellaWood 500 at Talladega gets the green flag Sunday at 2 p.m. EDT on NBC.
This article was originally published on HEAVY
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