Bubba Wallace on Netflix Series, Mental Health and 23XI Improvements

MW: We’ll get the business out of the way first, all the different variations these days, what is your favorite flavor of Dr. Pepper?

BW: I'm natural. I just go straight up. No, I'm excited for the Zero Sugar, for sure. It (was) on the car, but right off the shelf, natural, the organic, the original 23 flavors. That’s me.

MW: The reason I ask is that when I was a kid, my grandmother was diabetic, and all she drank was Diet Dr. Pepper. So, naturally, all I drank was Diet Dr. Pepper and I always appreciated that I thought it tasted close to the real deal. And Dr. Pepper makes me think of her, and we lost her about 10 years ago, so that’s always nice to do.

BW: Love to hear that.

MW: In the past month, we’ve learned that you’ll have a camera crew running with you for a documentary on your first season at 23XI Racing. Have they started filming that? What has that whole process been like for you so far?

BW: It’s been a lot of fun. Yeah, we’ve been filming since January, I would say. It was actually my idea. I wanted to give my fans an inside look. I went to my management team to see how we could make it happen. I felt this would be a perfect documentary to show everything it takes to be successful at the top level of NASCAR. Knowing this was a new opportunity for me, starting a new team, why not have all of that on film?

MW: You’ve had decent speed, but have broke a couple of times, and had some strategy not go your way, track position stuff too. How do you feel like you guys stack up for a brand-new team?

BW: I'm excited and proud of everybody's efforts. I mean, hell this thing came about, you know, two months before the season started. So, to see where we're at right now is really big. Knowing the potential that we have, knowing that the progression rate, I'm excited for the future. I'm excited for every race that's on the schedule. Every week, with the new schedule is such an unknown, in a positive way. Like, man, this could be the weekend that it really comes together. It’s exciting to go into every weekend having that mindset. If everything is clicking, if all the eggs are in one basket, we can go and get it done. So, yeah, everybody at 23XI is doing an amazing job with what we have in front of us to keep it going.

MW: You said during the pre-season that two wins was a realistic goal. This season had a lot more parity than we expected so do you think that’s still a realistic mark?

BW: I mean, that would be a start for sure. You know, that's still a personal goal for me. I'm still going at it. It was big to get a stage win because that brings confidence levels up and gets you excited. We’re still seeing what we can do, trying not to get ahead of ourselves, not cause our problems out on the race track, taking what the car will give us, take what the weekend will give us, race our own race, and continue to build that database.

MW: How is your 550 Package program this season, because there’s a lot of them this summer once we get through this stretch.