- Bubba Wallace achieved significant notoriety in 2021 when he became only the second Black driver in NASCAR history to win a Cup race.
- Previously, Wendell Scott earned his only career win in NASCAR’s premier series (known then as the Grand National Series) in 1963.
- Wallace also has been part of several controversial incidents during his career.
William Darrell “Bubba” Wallace Jr. is a talented race car driver who in 2017 became the first Black driver to reach the NASCAR Cup Series since Bill Lester (2006).
But more significantly, the Mobile, Ala. native (but grew up in Concord, N.C., in the shadow of Charlotte Motor Speedway), Wallace achieved significant notoriety in 2021 when he became only the second Black driver in NASCAR history to win a Cup race, when Wendell Scott earned his only career win in NASCAR’s premier series (known then as the Grand National Series) in 1963.
To further extrapolate that, Wallace has been the only Black driver to race full time in all three of NASCAR’s premier series (Cup, Xfinity and Trucks) throughout his career.
Wallace’s first Cup win came on October 4, 2021 at Talladega Superspeedway. However, the win was not without controversy: NASCAR prematurely ended what had originally been a 188-lap scheduled event after just 117 laps due to rain.
Wallace was the race leader when the event was placed under caution for the second time that afternoon due to rain, and after an attempt to dry the track was abruptly stopped when rain began to fall again, NASCAR ultimately wound up ruling the race finish official, giving Wallace the victory.
It not only was Wallace’s first career Cup triumph, but also the first win in NASCAR’s premier series for rookie Cup team 23XI Racing, co-owned by NBA legend Michael Jordan and Cup Series veteran driver Denny Hamlin. In addition, it was the first win for a McDonald’s sponsored car since 1994 (Jimmy Spencer was behind the wheel).
While there’s little dispute that Wallace is a talented driver, his career to date has been marked with significant inconsistency.
His greatest success came in the Camping World Truck Series, when he earned six wins, 15 top-five and 28 top-10 finishes in 49 starts. Wallace aspired for even greater achievement and moved to the Xfinity Series, where he won two races and had six top-five and 36 top-10 finishes in 88 starts. However, due to a combination of lack of overall success and primary sponsorship, he competed in just two full-time seasons (2015 and 2016), with a best overall season finish of seventh in 2015.
The biggest break of his racing career came in 2018, when he moved to the Cup Series full-time, driving the legendary No. 43 for Richard Petty Motorsports for three seasons. But that’s when his inconsistency became its worst, as from 2018 through 2020 with RPM, he never finished a season higher than 22nd and had a best average finish per race of just 21.1 (in 2020).
Wallace started the 2022 season with an outstanding runner-up finish in the Daytona 500, ending up just 0.036 seconds behind race winner and Cup rookie Austin Cindric. Nearly seven months later, Wallace notched his second career Cup win, but that was also mired in controversy. Even though he led the final 67 laps to take the checkered flag, numerous critics believed Hamlin, who finished second, held back in a late-race push to allow Wallace to win, something Hamlin denied.
Wallace signed a multiyear contract extension with 23XI Racing in 2022 that will keep him in the fold with the team for several more years (his initial contract with the team was originally scheduled to expire after the 2023 season).
Heading into the 2023 season, Wallace has just two Cup wins, 11 top-5 and 22 top-10 finishes. He has never made the NASCAR Cup playoffs, and even with his move to 23XI Racing in 2021, his best Cup season finish ever was 19th in 2022.
Wallace also has been part of several controversial incidents during his career. On the track, he’s been involved in several crashes, most recently coming in 2022 when he intentionally wrecked Kyle Larson in the fall playoff race at Las Vegas (and collected Christopher Bell’s car, causing severe damage to it). As if all that wasn’t bad enough, Wallace shoved Larson during the caution, leading NASCAR to suspend Wallace for one race (many observers felt the move by Wallace was so egregious that he should have been parked for the remainder of the season, but that did not occur).
In 2020, during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as the aftermath of the death of George Floyd, Wallace was involved in two instances that drew national attention to both him and NASCAR. First was Wallace’s activism in support of Black Lives Matter as well as calls for social justice and police accountability after the death of Floyd.
And then, on June 21, 2020, a noose was found on the overhead door of Wallace’s garage stall at Talladega Superspeedway. NASCAR and many of Wallace’s fellow drivers denounced the finding of the noose, believing it was placed there by someone who was trying to intimidate Wallace.
But following an investigation from the FBI, it was determined that the entire episode was not a hate crime and that the “noose” had actually been on the door since the previous season and that there was no ill or racist intent against Wallace or his team.
Wallace, who began racing at the age of 9, has also been very open about his struggles over the years with depression. On a brighter note, he married longtime girlfriend Amanda Carter on New Year’s Eve, December 31, 2022. Wallace’s longtime best friend, fellow NASCAR driver Ryan Blaney, served as his best man.
Follow Autoweek contributor Jerry Bonkowski on Twitter @JerryBonko