By Bob Pockrass
You know Bubba Wallace, even if you don’t know Bubba Wallace.
He’s that Black driver who wore an "I Can’t Breathe" T-shirt one week, was on TV advocating for NASCAR to ban the Confederate flag the next day, and sported a Black Lives Matter paint scheme in the next race.
He’s the driver whose crew member found a noose in his garage, a noose later determined to have been in the garage stall for months.
But who is Bubba Wallace?
Darrell Wallace Jr. was named Bubba because, like most people who are named after their father, a nickname was necessary to differentiate the two.
The son of a White father and a Black mother – a notable athlete herself who ran track at the University of Tennessee – Wallace was born in Mobile, Alabama, but his family moved to Concord, North Carolina when he was a toddler.
And there in North Carolina, he grew up loving what many kids in North Carolina love — racing. At age 14, in 2008, he became the youngest driver to win a late model race at Franklin County Speedway.
He earned a shot through the NASCAR Diversity program and has driven for some of the most notable and successful team owners in the sport, including Kyle Busch in trucks, Roush Fenway in the Xfinity Series.
Now, he drives for Richard Petty, the King, who won a record 200 Cup races in his career.
Wallace is a driver who has always been good enough to show potential. But he hasn’t been so dominant that he would be a can’t-miss prospect.
He is the only driver from the 2010 and 2011 diversity classes to be running full time at the national series level. He's never shied away from the topic of being the only Black driver on the circuit, and he has always understood the pressures on him.
He finished second in the 2018 Daytona 500 after weeks of intense media focus as the first full-time Black driver in 47 years and cried on the podium during the postrace news conference.
He’s also a driver whose focus could be questioned. His matter-of-fact description of his team’s lack of funding last year made him appear whiny.
But in the same matter-of-fact discussion, he could talk about depression, even breaking down in a media session.
He lives in the moment. He threw water on Alex Bowman as Bowman sat on the ground after a race. He rage quit during an iRacing event. He likes soda too much for his own racing physical health. He doesn’t hesitate to deliver a middle-finger salute to another driver if he feels wronged.
But that’s Bubba. He’s grown up in the spotlight, and we’ve seen him learn and stumble, get back up and win, get knocked down again and climb back into the driver’s seat.
He’s had his feuds with other drivers that have had nothing to do with his skin, but because of the way he has acted on or off the race track.
He’s real.
That was evident after drivers pushed his car to the front of the grid at Talladega. Drivers who will readily admit they aren’t great friends of Wallace didn’t shy away from supporting him.
They respect his handling of the pressure, handling of the attacks, handling of the hate that has come his way as he advocates for change.
And don’t forget that he’s just 26 years old.
Wallace himself is changing before everyone’s eyes. Seeing him in interviews, there’s times you wonder if he can handle it all. As he says, it’s a burden, but not really a burden.
So who is Bubba Wallace? I’ll say this: Don’t read this essay in five years to know who Bubba Wallace is. He’s growing up.
