Daytona 500 Runner-Up Bubba Wallace Needed One Chance To Show What He Can Do

Before he finished second in the Daytona 500 on Sunday, Darrell “Bubba” Wallace thought his time behind the wheel was coming to an end. At the ripe age of 24, Wallace thought he was finished with racing as a result of financial problems within Roush Fenway Racing.

“That was tough,” Wallace says. “It was tough to be able to go through and not know what was going to happen for next year. It was just always up in the air in terms of ‘What do I have to do to get a ride?’ and ‘What ride is going to become available?’ So it was a lot of questioning myself, was I even going to race anymore. It went on for a couple weeks if not months. Just trying to figure out what the hell is next, I had no idea.”

Wallace faced a crossroads in his fledgling career, which began when he was a teenager. Wallace was discovered by Wendell Scott Jr., whose father, Wendell Scott, who prior to Wallace was the only full-time African-American driver. NASCAR asked if the younger Scott would make the trip to Callaway, Va. to scout Wallace, who was racing that week.

Scott decided to go to the track unannounced so Wallace wouldn’t feel any additional pressure. But prior to the race, Scott decided to introduce himself to Wallace, offering advice for the young racer about how to handle himself on the track that day. As Scott tells it, his words of wisdom resonated immediately.

“He said ‘oh I got this,'” Scott recalls. “Sure enough, he started second and he didn’t have the car enough to win the race, but he ran second all night. They tried to put a bumper to him each turn and he handled it like a seasoned veteran. I was amazed, I had met some kids who were good drivers but this man knew what he was doing.”

After the race, Wallace made a beeline for Scott to potentially discuss how the teenager could be a part of the Drive For Diversity Program. While Wallace — who would have been 15 when the program started that year — was too young to enter, Scott made some phone calls. Not wanting to see a gifted racer turned away, Wallace and his family found themselves invited to the combine in South Boston, Va.

Scott and Wallace still speak on a weekly basis. Scott is a mentor, big brother, and extra crew chief all rolled into one, and he continues to help Wallace navigate the unruly seas of his career.

“Sometimes I talk to him and I don’t even talk about racing,” Scott said. “You can imagine how sought after this young man is. He loves it, you’ve seen how gregarious he is, which I get on him about sometimes. Sometimes he may say a few too many words.”

Wallace is known for being one of the more active drivers on social media, whether it’s his latest Instagram post or the game he’s streaming on Twitch on a given day. The 24-year old’s charisma translates over any platform.

During Wallace’s period of unemployment, he managed remain active on social media, doing it as a way to keep his name out there. And when Aric Almirola injured his back in May of 2017, Petty Motorsports called Wallace to fill in for four races. Wallace saw this time as a chance to prove something, to not only himself, but to the rest of the racing world.

“This was my moment to prove to everyone in the garage that I belong in the sport,” Wallace says. “So I used that to my best advantage, and if you look at each separate race, we got better and better and almost cracked into our first top-10 in our fourth start, and so I thought that was pretty strong, it made a statement.”

That four-race “tryout” was all the convincing that Petty Motorsports would need. After Almirola left to join Stewart-Haas racing, Wallace was signed in October. This meant Wallace could, in a way, relax, as his ride was secured for the following year.

No longer would Wallace hop from garage to garage. Instead, he had a trailer and a hauler dedicated to making him competitive week in and week out. The stresses of not having a ride are gone. Instead, the shadow of Wendell Scott Sr. looms. Wallace admits that despite his connection with the family, the pressure of being the only African-American driver has gotten to him at times.

“I know it’s there, ” Wallace says. “In years past I let the pressure get to me. We didn’t perform to our highest abilities.”

Along with the pressure to succeed comes the pressure of having reality show cameras follow. NASCAR Digital Media and Facebook Watch have been following Wallace around since officially signing with Petty Motorsports. The 12-part series gives even more of a window to show how tight the bonds are between Wallace and the people he interacts with on a daily basis.

“The show highlights his authenticity,” NASCAR Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Jill Gregory says. “The way he goes about his daily life, he just happens to have a really cool job driving race cars 200 miles an hour. He’s the same guy who’s sitting around with his friends and plays the drums. That juxtaposition of ‘I’ve got this amazing career and this opportunity in front of me, but I’m the same guy I always was’ is gonna be really attractive to fans.”

The series will have to highlight one Wallace coming in second at Daytona. Hank Aaron called him prior to the race, F1’s Lewis Hamilton tweeted out support from a continent away, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. offered congratulations after the race came to a close. If only for a moment, Wallace had done something the great Wendell Scott had never done before by becoming the first African-American racer to ever finish top-two at Daytona.

For all the pressure Wallace put on himself to succeed, he always carried it gracefully. He did, however, have one moment after the race where he briefly became overwhelmed, as he shed some tears while hugging his mother, Desiree, and his older sister, Brittany.

“It’s a sensitive subject, ” Wallace says. “But I’m just so emotional over where my family has been the last two years, and I don’t talk about it, but it’s just so hard. I just try so hard to be successful at everything I do, and my family pushes me each and every day, and they might not even know it, but I just want to make them proud.”