CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Bubba Wallace is off to a strong start in the Chase for the NASCAR Cup Series championship but he still has a long way to go to hoist the Bill France Cup.

Wallace has climbed from 14th to 10th in the standings with the fifth-most points of any driver in the first three Chase races. However, he's still 92 points behind leader Kyle Larson.

"It's a big stretch but anything can happen. You go off and rattle off two wins here with 50-to-60-point days and that gap shrinks quick," Wallace said. "I have the confidence in our people and what they're bringing to the racetrack and ultimately at the the end of the recipe, the main ingredient is me."

Wallace is a former winner at Kansas Speedway – where they'll run this weekend – and Talladega Superspeedway, where they'll run in late-October. However, he hasn't won since the Brickyard 400 last year – while his teammates have won seven times since then.

"The baby steps of progression are kind of getting old and outplayed for me. It needs to be massive improvements. I look at our team... Five wins with [Tyler] Reddick, Corey [Heim] coming in and and winning two races right off the bat and... we're steadily at the zero on that win column," Wallace reflected. 

Kansas starts a stretch of intermediate tracks that also includes Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Charlotte Motor Speedway, where he and his Toyota teammates have run very well.

"I think we pick up wherever we left off. We've continued to to work to even make our cars better. Now that we're in the Chase... we continue to push for more so I don't expect to see really a different change of scenery," Wallace said.

Wallace believes the stretch of three intermediates is where the contenders will separate themselves from the pretenders.

"I think the next three races is a good indicator of who your champion will be... We've kind of been in the gauntlet of being around seventh to 10th and you've had a lot of different names in the hat at these short tracks," Wallace said. "Obviously, the Penske cars were fast but I think this this goes back to being in our wheelhouse for for the next month and it's the later part of the Chase and so this is where you get some separation and you start to see the the standings kind of settle out to where they're at."

With seven races left in the season, Toyota leads the manufacturer's championship over Chevrolet by a commanding 175 points with 15 wins in 29 races.

Yet, Kyle Larson leads the driver's standings in a Chevrolet and stands with the six Toyotas as Wallace's biggest challengers. 

"I know we have a couple spots in front of us that are easy to grab but we're still 92 points out and I look at Kansas as a great opportunity for us and the 23 team. But I'm also not naive to the fact that there's... six other Toyotas out there that are easily capable of winning too... So we just have to be better than those guys and then we can kind of start making that generational run, as I called it. We've kind of stalled out ever since Darlington but we've just kind of been consistent. But needs to needs to turn around here."

Wallace is one of 10 drivers with multiple top-10 finishes in the Chase. He finished eighth at Darlington Raceway and seventh at Bristol Motor Speedway but 14th at Gateway.

"If we win, then that pads all the rest of the stats," Wallace said.

Wallace has been relatively unflashy with the way he's run the Chase. In contrast, Carson Hocevar has stolen headlines basically every weekend.

"He's playing into the media side and the hype and all that for his brand and good for him. He's doing it better than than anybody else," Wallace said. "I think we're in a spot in the sport where a lot of the drivers get booed, right? And you finally have somebody going in and wrecking those drivers that get booed and next thing you know, that driver is getting praised for it. So it's interesting how it all works out but it is what it is."

While it's working with some of the fans, it's not working with his fellow competitors.

"I think he's definitely making it hard on himself with everything that goes down, whether it's his fault or not," Wallace said. "I've had plenty of conversations with drivers that I've had run-ins with that's not being talked about in the media... After the first incident, it's just like, 'hey, that's just racing.' And second, it's like, 'ah, you know, what could we have done better?' The third and fourth and fifth, it just becomes like, 'oh, your name's attached to that,' and that's where that's where so much frustration gets built up."

A friend of Blaney's, and a former fellow metal band member, Wallace was surprised that Blaney went after Hocevar.

"I was just sitting there thinking, like, "Oh boy, he's going to be ------. I can't wait to hear about what he's going to say to Carson or what he's going to do to Carson and then not do it. Was I wrong? Holy cow! I was surprised," Wallace said ecstatically. "I was surprised that he went up to him and how that all unfolded. It was funny how he ate two punches and I mean he ate them! They didn't look very hard but he admitted he got his --- kicked and he he did sure but he came back and I think he got a swing in. So yeah, it was entertaining." 

NASCAR CEO Steve O'Donnell appeared on 2014 NASCAR Cup Series champion Kevin Harvick's podcast to announce the sanctioning body wasn't going to penalize anyone over the incident or the fight. Wallace praised that move, acknowledging it fits the spirit of the sport he and other drivers came up in.

"I think self-policing is is super important," Wallace said. "You learn how to race people, how they race you and you put up with no crap at the end of the day. And if you're the guy that's always in the in the headlines for being involved, right or wrong, then you kind of have to know that something is coming... 

"I think the message that that it sends is is the FAFO. Simple as that. You continue to poke the bear and get punched in the nose."

Wallace won't let anyone bully him or his team, especially while running for the championship.

"There's going to be consequences and repercussions, whether it's on my side or not," Wallace said. "I don't justify anything I've done – at Vegas to Larson – but that was the last time I've been put in the fence, running competitively inside the top-five. So people are still going to hate me for that and that's okay. Because at the end of the day, I'm sticking up for my team and how we were disrespected in that moment and I haven't been disrespected since." 

Wallace finished fifth in the spring with 39 points earned. While it's far less than the "50-to-60-point day" he's seeking at Kansas, the run shows he could contend for the win. 

"For us, winning Sunday ultimately flips the script for all of us, gets us on the right track," Wallace said. "From 14th to 10th is a run. It's not generational but I think there's obviously a couple spots in front of us that are easy to grab and we just got to keep pressing forward."

The Hollywood Casino 400 goes green just after 3 p.m. ET on USA Sports, MRN affiliates and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.