Some critics of Bubba Wallace paint him as being overhyped and over-promoted, a good driver — but not a great one — who is one of the faces of NASCAR merely because he’s the only Black full-time driver in its top tier of racing.
Other knocks on Wallace are that he can be both a hothead and a diva, likes the spotlight a bit too much and — oh, no, here comes the “W” word — is hell-bent on turning NASCAR “woke.”
We can trace much of this back to 2020, when the world was a vulnerable place, tensions ran high all over and lashing out at opposing points of view became, if we may — and not that it wasn’t already — a contact sport.
In the spring of that year, and in the wake of George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis, Wallace — who will drive the No. 23 Toyota for Michael Jordan’s 23XI Racing team in Sunday’s Grant Park 220 — began speaking out for police accountability and reform and echoing calls for racial justice. At the track, he wore “Black Lives Matter” shirts and emblazoned BLM messaging on his race car. Around the same time, he successfully led a push to have the Confederate flag banned at races, and we can all imagine the ill will that stirred.
Then came a “noose” controversy that was terrible on its face but later, after an FBI investigation, determined to have been a deeply unfortunate misunderstanding. A member of Wallace’s team reported to NASCAR that a noose had been discovered in Wallace’s garage stall at Talladega. NASCAR president Steve Phelps immediately backed Wallace, calling it “heinous,” and Wallace’s fellow drivers pushed his car to the front of pit road before the following day’s Cup Series race in solidarity.
But the investigation found the “noose” was a pull-down rope meant for closing a garage door, not a hate crime. This only opened the door wider to bilious criticism of Wallace, particularly on social media, and it was amplified by then-President Donald Trump on Twitter.
“Has @BubbaWallace apologized to all of those great NASCAR drivers & officials who came to his aid, stood by his side, & were willing to sacrifice everything for him, only to find out that the whole thing was just another HOAX?” Trump tweeted. “That & Flag decision has caused lowest ratings EVER!”
NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace poses for a photo in front of Buckingham Fountain as he drives around the city in July 2022, shortly after Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced that there will be three years of NASCAR races along the lake in downtown Chicago, with the first set for July 2, 2023. The 2.2-mile showcase represents the first street course race in NASCAR’s 75-year history.
Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times
All that is in the baggage Wallace, 29, brought with him to Chicago for a historic weekend of street racing. After arriving here Wednesday, his first stop was Bubba’s Block Party, an outreach event at the DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center at Washington Park on the South Side, where the large majority of attendees were Black.
Wallace — born in Mobile, Alabma, and raised in Concord, North Carolina, — was asked what advice he had for young people here.
“There’s more to life than what may be right in front of you,” he said, “but you’ve got to go out and achieve that; you’ve got to go out and actually attack it. Nothing’s really ever given to you in this world. … No matter if it’s racecar [driving], cutting grass — I don’t know, every job — you’ve got to be great at it to succeed, so just continue to fight hard and push hard.”
The same kids, though, might want to learn more about Wallace. And if they do, they’ll find the same stories anyone does when Googling him — including those, impossible to miss, that call him NASCAR’s most unpopular driver. How would he explain that to them?
“I’ve always said there’s three types of people: the ones that will accept change, the ones that are on the fence about change and the ones that will never change,” he said. “You can never get to the minds of the people that will never change, so we don’t really focus our energy on those people. We try to convince the ones that are on the fence about change: ‘This is what can happen. Stick with us, and let’s ride it out to the end.’ And the ones that are OK with living life on the edge and accepting change right away, let’s do it. …
“Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t like changes that we’re doing as a sport to tap into different demographics and make the sport more welcoming and inclusive, and that’s on them. They have to live with that. For us, we continue to march forward.”
Boat-rocking isn’t always appreciated in NASCAR, which, according to Wallace, often “comes off as being very scripted and tailored to making sponsors happy and making everybody that’s watching happy.” But he had an honest reaction when asked about tickets to Saturday’s and Sunday’s races, which begin at $269 for general admission.
“A little high,” he said. “I think that’s for another conversation another day, but we’ve got to make it accessible for everybody. Yeah, it should be cheaper.”
Boat, meet rock.
“I’m a very raw and real guy,” he said. “I’m 50-50 liked or hated, but that’s OK. I can go to sleep at night knowing that I’m being myself, and that’s just who I am. We’ve got to feel more comfortable just being real and being real about what we do.”
