NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace faced backlash from a black-oriented online magazine this week after he appeared to intentionally slam into another driver during a race on Sunday and then got out of his car and attacked the driver.
The incident happened during Stage 2 of the South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway when Wallace, who won Stage 1, was next to driver Kyle Larson when Larson attempted a three-wide pass.
Larson moved up the track and his car gave a slight tap to Wallace’s car, causing Wallace’s car to brush up against the wall. After brushing up against the wall, Wallace bounced into Larson’s car and then continued by tracking Larson’s car down the track and slamming into the rear of his car, causing both cars to spin out.
The Root’s Stephanie Holland slammed Wallace in a piece featured at the top of site on Monday titled, “Bubba Wallace Has Damaged His Reputation With Unprofessional Post-Race Behavior”.
The piece at first attempted to suggest without evidence that Wallace would be held to a higher standard than everyone else because he is black but the story soon turned and harshly criticized the driver, especially over his post-crash interview on NBC.
“Come on, Bubba. This ain’t it and you know it,” Holland wrote. “With these cars going between 180 to 200 miles per hour, you damn well know running into the back of another racer at that speed is dangerous and unprofessional. You’re a better driver than that. And for you to not care about involving someone who’s racing for a spot in the championship finals is a**hole behavior.”
The writer noted that Wallace was likely to receive “a sizable fine and a possible suspension for the retaliation” but that the “stain on his reputation will be harder to come back from.”
When Wallace was interviewed on NBC after the race, the interviewer pointed out that Cliff Daniels, one of the top NASCAR crew chiefs, said that Wallace’s actions amounted to retaliation and asked then asked Wallace if it was retaliation.
“Cliff is smart enough to know that how easy these cars break so when you get shoved into the fence, like deliberately like he did, trying to force me to lift, steering was gone,” Wallace claimed and then smirked, “he just so happened to be there.”
Wallace claimed, “It was just a piss poor move on his execution.”
“When situations like this happen, Bubba, at this speed, is retaliation an acceptable thing?” the interviewer asked.
“Stop fishing,” Wallace snapped. “Stop fishing.”
“I’m not fishing. I’m just asking you,” the interviewer responded. “Let’s also talk about the message you wanted to send to Kyle by going up to him after the incident.”
“He knows,” Wallace said. “He knows that what he did was wrong. He wanted to question what I was doing. He never cleared me so just hate it for our team, our McDonald’s Toyota Camry was super solid.”
"I don't lift."
Hear from @BubbaWallace after his incident with Kyle Larson. #NASCAR pic.twitter.com/XUMPs2sRsf
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) October 16, 2022