Bubba Wallace
William Darrell "Bubba" Wallace Jr. is an American professional stock car racing driver. He competes full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, driving the No. 23 Toyota Camry XSE for 23XI Racing.
Wallace was previously a development driver in Toyota's driver development program where he drove part-time for Joe Gibbs Racing in the Xfinity Series and full-time for Kyle Busch Motorsports in the Camping World Truck Series. He then moved over to Ford and their driver development program and competed full-time for Roush Fenway Racing in the Xfinity Series. After competing in select Cup Series races for Richard Petty Motorsports in their famous No. 43 as an injury replacement for Aric Almirola, Wallace became a full-time driver for RPM in the same car when Almirola left the team, which was his first full-time ride in the Cup Series.
Wallace has been the only full-time Black American driver in NASCAR's three national series each year he has competed in them.
Racing career
Early career
Wallace started racing in the Bandolero and Legends car racing series, as well as local late model events, at the age of nine. In 2005, he won 35 of the Bandolero Series' 48 races held that year; in 2008 he became the youngest driver to win at Franklin County Speedway in Virginia.NASCAR K&N Pro Series/Drive for Diversity
In 2010, Wallace began competing in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East, a regional and developmental series. Wallace drove for Rev Racing as part of NASCAR's Drive for Diversity program, and was signed as a development driver for Joe Gibbs Racing. He won his very first race in the series, at Greenville-Pickens Speedway, becoming the youngest driver ever to win at the track, he was also the youngest driver to win in the series history, which began as the Busch North Series in 1987. He also won later in the year at Lee USA Speedway in New Hampshire, on his way to finishing third in series points and winning the series' Rookie of the Year award. He was the first African American to win the Rookie of the Year award in a NASCAR series. Wallace's 2011 season would see him winning three times, at Richmond International Raceway, Columbus Motor Speedway, and Dover International Speedway, and he finished second in points to Max Gresham.Wallace moved to race directly for Joe Gibbs Racing for the 2012 season. Racing the entire K&N East Series season along with four to six selected races in the Nationwide Series, Wallace won the second East event of the year at Greenville-Pickens Speedway, his first win with JGR.
In 2018, Wallace returned to K&N East at Watkins Glen driving the No. 27 Chevrolet for Jefferson Pitts Racing to provide him with extra road course seat time before the Cup Series race later that weekend.
Xfinity Series
2012
Wallace made his national series debut in the Xfinity Series in late May, driving the No. 20 Dollar General Toyota for JGR at Iowa Speedway; he ran in the top ten for most of the event, finishing ninth. After posting further top ten finishes in his next two starts in the series, Wallace won his first career Nationwide Series pole at Dover International Speedway in late September.2014
In 2014, he returned to the Nationwide Series for Joe Gibbs Racing in the No. 20, starting in May at Talladega Superspeedway where he would finish 34th after being involved in The Big One while running thirteenth. He ran only one more Nationwide race that year, at Daytona in July with Coca-Cola's "Share a Coke" campaign sponsoring where he would finish a strong seventh.2015
Following the 2014 season, it was expected that Wallace would move up to the Xfinity Series with Joe Gibbs Racing in a full-time ride, with the owner Joe Gibbs claiming they would have "a big program" for the young driver. After the team struggled to find sponsorship for more than fifteen races, on December 8, 2014, Wallace announced he had been granted his request to leave JGR and seek other opportunities. Later, it was reported he had signed a deal to compete in the Xfinity Series for Roush Fenway Racing for 2015 with Chad Norris as his crew chief. On December 18, 2014, RFR officially announced that they had signed Wallace to compete full-time in the No. 6 Ford Mustang in 2015, with sponsors and crew members to be announced at a later date. On January 28, 2015, at NASCAR Media Day, it was announced that Wallace would drive the No. 6 Ford EcoBoost Mustang. Wallace started the season with a twelfth place finish at Daytona and earned fourteen top-tens to finish seventh in the final point standings. He was beaten by Daniel Suárez for Rookie of the Year by a single top-ten finish.2016
Wallace finished sixth in the season opener at Daytona. He got his first top-three of the season at California Speedway, in which he claimed third after a dramatic final lap saw long time leader Kyle Busch blow a tire giving the lead to Daniel Suarez temporarily as he would then run out of fuel just after passing Busch which then gave Busch back the lead, who was ultimately overtaken by Austin Dillon who would go onto win and Wallace would overtake Suarez, matching his career best finish, at the time, of third. Wallace then earned his best career finish at Dover International Speedway finishing second to the dominant Erik Jones but at the end of the season dropped to eleventh overall in the points. Wallace did make the inaugural Xfinity Series chase and made it to the round of 8 before being eliminated after the penultimate race at Phoenix.2017
After finishing 33rd in the season-opening race at Daytona, Wallace finished in sixth place five consecutive times. However, at Bristol, Wallace struggled. After starting from last, Wallace was trapped a lap down throughout the race, eventually getting caught up in a late crash. Wallace would finish the race in 33rd. At Charlotte, Wallace would run upfront for a majority of the race, even leading for three laps, but a late-race pit stop relegated him behind the top ten. Wallace got loose and hit the wall with a few laps to go costing him a top ten and finishing 28th. However, despite being fourth in the Drivers' Championship standings, Roush Fenway announced that they would be suspending operations of Wallace's Xfinity Series team following the Pocono race weekend due to sponsorship issues.Wallace signed with Biagi-DenBeste Racing to drive the No. 98 Ford at Chicagoland Speedway where he would score a tenth place finish.
NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series
2013
In February 2013, it was announced that Wallace would run a full season in the Camping World Truck Series in the No. 54 Toyota owned by Kyle Busch Motorsports. At Rockingham Speedway in April Wallace, following accidental contact with Ron Hornaday Jr., was turned by Hornaday under a caution flag, his truck hitting the outside wall. Hornaday was penalized for the contact by being sent to the rear of the field; after the race, Hornaday was penalized 25 championship points and assessed a $25,000 fine, in addition to being placed on probation for the remainder of the season. The situation was compared to an incident at the 2011 WinStar World Casino 350K where Kyle Busch deliberately wrecked Hornaday at Texas Motor Speedway.On October 26, 2013, Wallace became the first African-American driver to win in one of NASCAR's national series since 1963, winning the Camping World Truck Series Kroger 200 at Martinsville Speedway. The only previous win by an African-American driver was by Wendell Scott in the Grand National Division on December 1, 1963. Wallace finished eighth in points in his rookie season.
2014
In 2014, Wallace returned to the Camping World Truck Series full-time in the No. 54. In June, Wallace won the Drivin' for Linemen 200 at Gateway Motorsports Park. Three weeks later, he battled Kyle Larson and Ron Hornaday Jr. for the win at Eldora Speedway. Wallace held off a hard charging Larson, who wrecked his car trying to catch him, and beat Hornaday by a 5.489-second margin to win the second annual Mudsummer Classic. Wallace switched to the No. 34 for the Kroger 200 at Martinsville in tribute to Wendell Scott, and led the most laps en route to his second straight victory in the race. Wallace won his final race with KBM, the season finale at Homestead Miami Speedway, beating Larson again to earn his first non-short track victory. Wallace's four wins along with nine top fives and fourteen top-tens led to a third-place finish in points.2017
Wallace returned to the Camping World Truck Series at Michigan in August, driving the No. 99 Truck for MDM Motorsports, and ended up winning the race, holding off Christopher Bell and Kyle Busch who rounded out the top three. However, Wallace's truck was discovered to have had illegal vent holes, resulting in an L1-level penalty that suspended crew chief Shane Huffman for one race and penalized the No. 99 team ten points.2018
In May, Wallace once again returned to the Truck Series, driving the No. 20 for Young's Motorsports at Kansas. He finished fourteenth after running out of fuel from fifth with four laps to go.2019
In March, Wallace returned to the Truck Series for the TruNorth Global 250 at Martinsville and Vankor 350 at Texas, driving the No. 22 for AM Racing. He filled in for the team's driver/owner, Austin Wayne Self, following his suspension. Wallace would finish tenth and twentieth, respectively, in these two races. Self would then be reinstated before the next race and he returned to his truck.2021
In March 2021, Wallace joined Spencer Davis Motorsports to drive their No. 11 in the Pinty's Dirt Truck Race on Bristol Motor Speedway's dirt layout. For this race, the truck was fielded in a partnership with Hattori Racing Enterprises. He finished eleventh in the race.NASCAR Cup Series
2017
On June 5, 2017, Richard Petty Motorsports announced plans to have Wallace drive the team's No. 43 Ford in place of injured Aric Almirola, making Wallace the first African-American to race in the Cup Series since Bill Lester in 2006. In qualifying for his Cup debut at the Pocono 400, he was able to advance to the second round and start sixteenth. During the race, Wallace suffered from speeding penalties on pit road, including one while he was serving an earlier pass-through penalty; at one point, he nearly missed his pit stall because he looked for his Xfinity pit sign instead of the No. 43. He went on to finish 26th and one lap down. After congratulating Ryan Blaney in Victory Lane, Wallace passed out and required medical attention. He later stated, "This is the third time this is happened. I get so pissed off at myself that I just pass out."Wallace earned a finish of eleventh at Kentucky after being involved in a last-lap wreck.