Bubba Wallace earns first career NASCAR Cup win in rain-shortened Talladega race

Bubba Wallace earned his first career NASCAR Cup Series win Monday at Talladega, becoming the first Black driver since Wendell Scott in 1963 to win at NASCAR's top level.

The race, which is official because it was more than halfway complete, saw the caution thrown with three laps to go in Stage 2 (Lap 116) when Ryan Preece spun and hit the wall, collecting playoff contender William Byron and Matt DiBenedetto. The field was brought to pit road on Lap 118 as rain began to fall. Wallace was running ahead of Penske teammates Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano before the crash.

In 142 Cup Series races, Wallace’s previous best finish was second, twice – first in the 2018 Daytona 500 and again this season in the Aug. 28 Daytona race. The 27-year-old is in his first season driving for Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin’s 23XI Racing; he drove for Richard Petty Motorsports from 2017-20.

"There was a huge weight lifted off my shoulders," Wallace said. "It's been four years (since his last win, a Michigan Truck Series race) and I'm a winner, and I'm a winner at the Cup level, so it's, hell yeah!

"But then you think about everything else to follow suit with the history being made. And, you know, there's a lot of firsts today within our team, within our organization. … It's been a lot of up and down races, a lot of frustration, a lot of shouting matches. But we always regroup and come back and rally for when the green flag falls on Sunday, or whether it's a Monday like today, and we go out and compete and we put everything else aside and we know what we’ve got to focus on. And we continue to build this organization up."

Though Wallace is 22nd in the standings, the first-year team is set to expand next year, with Kurt Busch joining the organization in a second Toyota.

Team co-owner Michael Jordan congratulated Wallace in a statement, saying "This is a huge milestone and a historic win for us. From the day we signed him, I knew Bubba had the talent to win and Denny and I could not be more proud of him. Let's go!"

At this track in June 2020, weeks after NASCAR banned the Confederate flag from all NASCAR properties and events, a rope fashioned in the shape of a noose was found hanging in Bubba Wallace’s assigned garage stall. For just under two days as the incident was investigated, NASCAR rallied around Wallace and made it clear there was no room for racism in the sport.

An FBI investigation determined it to be an unfortunate coincidence that Wallace’s team was assigned — randomly — to a garage stall that had a rope fashioned in noose form since Oct. 2019, and Wallace was not the target of a hate crime.

Prior to the checkered flag, playoff contenders William Byron and Alex Bowman crashed, making their chances of reaching the next round of the playoffs mathematically difficult.

(Photo: Chris Graythen / Getty Images)

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What's the impact of Wallace's win?

Jeff Gluck, motorsports writer: The symbolism of Wallace being able to celebrate his first career win at Talladega of all places — where the infamous garage rope incident drew headlines last year — is powerful. Wallace was mostly cheered by the remaining fans along the fence line, some chanting “Bubba! Bubba!” It’s fair to assume many of his detractors didn’t want to stick around to see if he won in the rain, though a few fans chanted “Fuck you, Bubba!”

Though some will certainly choose to believe NASCAR handed him the win, that was far from the case. The weather simply wouldn’t allow them to continue track drying efforts and the track has no lights. Wallace, an Alabama native racing in his home state, earned this win the same as any other driver would with the weather situation.

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What the win means for Wallace

Gluck: This is a significant day for Bubba Wallace’s career. After failing to make the playoffs in his first year at 23XI Racing, Wallace has now answered the question of whether he’ll ever win at NASCAR’s highest level.

Does it erase a disappointing season? Perhaps not altogether, but if someone said in February that Wallace and 23XI would get a victory in their first year, they probably would have gladly taken that no matter the circumstances. Now the first one is out of the way and Wallace can head into 2022 with a fresh start and an eye on increasing his weekly level of competitiveness.

Why is Wallace so good on superspeedways?

Jordan Bianchi, motorsports writer: Wallace has always had a good understanding of the nuances associated with superspeedway racing and how to manage the art of drafting to his advantage, routinely putting himself in a position to score good finishes at Daytona and Talladega.

But to take that next step and reach victory lane, he and the team came into Talladega with a plan to be even more aggressive, Freddie Kraft, Wallace's spotter, told The Athletic. That meant decisively making moves to get to the front, then holding his lead with blocks on potential challengers, especially in the closing laps as the threat of rain increased. And as planned, Wallace executed, finding himself in a position to capitalize.

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