When the 2025 NASCAR Cup Collection season begins, Bubba Wallace can have a brand new voice chatting with him from atop the pit field.
Bootie Barker, who has served as Wallace’s crew chief since September of 2021 and helped Wallace win his first two Cup Collection races, will transfer to a contest function at 23XI Racing, with Charles Denike taking up crew chief duties for Wallace in 2025.
Denike at the moment serves because the crew chief for Christian Eckes within the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Collection. In 2024, Denike and Eckes have received three races collectively and are in search of to make the Championship 4 at Martinsville on Friday.
As Wallace closes out the 2024 season, a brand new crew chief for his eighth full-time season in 2025 shall be a breath of contemporary air for the 31-year-old driver.
Wallace and Barker have been a stable pairing however have stagnated a bit over the previous two seasons. Wallace’s final win got here at Kansas in September of 2022, and whereas Wallace made the playoffs final season, the No. 23 staff missed out on the postseason this yr.
That does not imply 2024 has been all unhealthy, although. Wallace has a nasty profession yr in each statistic however wins, and had it not been for a plethora of winners beneath the reduce line, he would have simply made the playoffs.
Even so, Barker’s incapacity to raise Wallace to the “subsequent degree,” in addition to documented struggles with constantly enhancing vehicles throughout races, makes the transfer an comprehensible one for a staff in 23XI that expects nothing lower than championship rivalry.
Denike might not be capable to elevate Wallace to championship contender standing of their first yr collectively, however Wallace has proven marked enchancment in yearly of his Cup Collection profession. With a brand new crew chief to information him by way of a brand new season, do not be stunned if he makes a stunning run in 2025.
