KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- Bubba Wallace was surprised in the very best of ways when he learned this week that Legacy Motor Club, the team owned in part by longtime Chevrolet driver Jimmie Johnson, would be joining the Toyota stable next season.
Not quite as good as the feeling he walked out of Kansas Speedway last season.
Pretty good, though.
"That was crazy," said Wallace, who drives a Toyota for 23XI Racing, when asked about the biggest news to hit the NASCAR Cup Series in a while. "They're excited because of numbers, right? We have more numbers, more cars to play, especially on the speedways. We're still the minority but it helps for sure."
Not that Toyota needs much help, especially at Kansas Speedway, where the 23XI cars head into today's race having swept both at the mile-and-a-half track last season. Kurt Busch won the spring race in the No. 45 car on a banner day for the young team, then Wallace jumped out of his No. 23 to take the same car to victory lane in the fall race.
Throw in the fact that Martin Truex Jr. drove a Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing to victory in Monday's rain-delayed race at Dover and the manufacturer, long at a numbers disadvantage to Chevy and Ford, has a groundswell of momentum behind it.
"I've seen some of that talk that Toyota is the top of the topics," Wallace said, "so that's good."
The decision by Legacy, which represents the pieces of Petty Enterprises bought out by Johnson and Maury Gallagher, means Erik Jones will be returning to Toyota along with Noah Gragson next season. That means it will have eight full-time cars in field, rather than the six split between Gibbs and 23XI. And that in turn should make all of them more competitive.
"We're really excited about that," said Tyler Reddick, who moved from Chevy to Toyota himself this season when he joined 23XI from Richard Childress Racing. "The more we have out there on the track helps, especially at the superspeedways, but also having a bigger pool of crew chiefs and minds helps."
In the meantime, Wallace and Reddick will have each other -- and the four Gibbs cars -- at Kansas Speedway. And that's been enough lately. Toyota has won five of the last seven races, including two trips by Denny Hamlin to victory lane.
"Obviously it feels really good to get back here to Kansas, and get back to what we did in the fall," said Wallace, who held off his team owner Hamlin for his second career win, and first in a race that wasn't shortened by rain.
"I thought that was a really special weekend for us," Wallace said.
Now, the 23XI team has a chance for another special weekend. With Reddick in the seat of the No. 45 car, it could become the first to win three consecutive races at the same track with a different driver for each of them.
"That would be really cool," Reddick admitted. "But I mean, all that aside, it's about coming here and putting together a weekend and executing. Both teams, the whole organization, is really, really excited, and really wanting to see what we've got a couple of months removed from the last time we were here. Everyone is coming in with a lot of confidence."
Martin Truex Jr., center, celebrates in Victory Lane after winning the NASCAR 400 auto race at Dover Motor Speedway, Monday, May 1, 2023, in Dover, Del. (AP Photo/Jason Minto)
Denny Hamlin greets fans as he is introduced before a NASCAR Cup Series auto race at Talladega Superspeedway, Sunday, April 23, 2023, in Talladega, Ala. (AP Photo/Butch Dill)
Bubba Wallace (23) leads a pack of cars during a NASCAR Cup Series auto race at Talladega Superspeedway, Sunday, April 23, 2023, in Talladega. (AP Photo/Butch Dill)