The race might have ended early, under a rain-induced red flag, but what a finish it was.
The Winner
Last summer, in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, Bubba Wallace called on NASCAR to ban fans from displaying the Confederate battle flag at races. NASCAR had asked fans not to display it for five years at this point, first after the 2015 Charleston massacre, but this time, under pressure from Wallace and others, they banned it outright, two days after Wallace’s public request.
The response, to this and to Wallace’s support of the concept that Black Lives Matter, was intense. 26 days after the ban was announced, even the President of the United States (the nation you might remember from being the one the Confederacy fought in all those battles where the flag was originally flown) criticized NASCAR for the move. But first, eleven days after the ban was announced, prior to a scheduled race at Talladega, a plane flew overhead pulling a banner with a Confederate battle flag in its wake.
That day’s race was rained out. The drivers left the garage area. But a spotter for Wallace went back to the team’s stall, and there he found a rope, tied like a hangman’s noose.
The response, again, was intense. Before the makeup race the next day, the Cup Series drivers demonstrated on pit road in support of Wallace. An FBI investigation was launched.
In the end, the investigation found the rope in question was a pull-down rope for an overhead door, and that the loop had been there for nearly a year prior to Wallace even being assigned that stall. This, of course, escalated things further (this is why we got then-POTUS weighing in), and questions remained. NASCAR officials inspected every garage at the organization’s 29 sanctioned tracks, 1,684 garages in all, and found just eleven pull ropes with knots and one pull rope tied in a noose—the one at Talladega, in the stall that ended up being Wallace’s stall.
At its most benign, this was a tragic coincidence, and to recap, Wallace wasn’t even the one who reported the noose’s existence in the first place. But political opportunity is political opportunity, the thing became fodder, and antipathy towards Wallace—already a subject of racist vitriol—rose in earnest among a significant segment of NASCAR’s fanbase and supporters of the then-president. That antipathy has smoothed, but it remains.
Among the criticisms is a persistent allegation that Wallace isn’t a good enough driver to be in the sport, that he’s there for some political reason (never mind that in the race immediately following the Confederate flag ban, Wallace’s team was unable to secure a primary sponsor for the car) rather than because of his own ability.
Yesterday, Wallace became one of just fifteen people to win a NASCAR Cup Series race this season.
The Race
It was a good race! The rain came in late, but everyone knew it when it popped up close to the track, and the drama of “Who can get to the front before the rain hits?” was, though not on the level of a green-white-checkered superspeedway restart, dramatic. It was a frenzied race. It was a high-pressure race. If you watched this summer’s Daytona race, with the constant lead changes and white-knuckle racing, it was a whole lot like that. Lot of fun. In the end, Wallace got out front with rain a few minutes away, and when the field wrecked behind him, trying to catch him, he entered the caution and ensuing rain-induced red flag with the lead. When the estimated drying time exceeded the amount of daylight remaining, NASCAR called the race, and Wallace had officially won.
Results
Top ten, other playoff drivers:
Brad Keselowski came in 2nd.
Joey Logano was 3rd.
Kurt Busch was 4th.
Christopher Bell got a big top-five finish, keeping him alive in the playoffs without necessarily needing to win next week (though winning would be the preference).
Chris Buescher finished 6th.
Denny Hamlin was 7th.
Kevin Harvick was 8th.
Erik Jones was 9th.
Anthony Alfredo was 10th.
Martin Truex Jr. finished 12th.
Ryan Blaney was 15th.
Chase Elliott was 18th, having to double-pit at one point.
Kyle Busch was 27th, suffering some damage.
William Byron ended the race in flames (in the event that drew the final caution pre-red flag), in 36th.
Kyle Larson got beat up early and couldn’t get much back. 37th.
Alex Bowman wrecked out from the lead. Not a whole lot he could have done. 38th.
Standings
One race left in the Round of 12:
1. Hamlin: Locked into Round of 8 via win
2. Larson: 22 points ahead of first driver out
3. Logano: 21 points ahead of first driver out
4. Keselowski: 20 points ahead of first driver out
5. Truex: 20 points ahead of first driver out
6. Blaney: 15 points ahead of first driver out
7. Elliott: 9 points ahead of first driver out
8. Kyle Busch: Last driver in, 9 points ahead of first driver out
9. Harvick: First driver out, 9 points behind last driver in
10. Bell: 28 points behind last driver in
11. Byron: 44 points behind last driver in
12. Bowman: 52 points behind last driver in
Thoughts, Implications, Up Next
Startlingly rough day for Hendrick Motorsports, which is in danger of entering the Round of 8 with just one driver remaining. It’s a long season. Bell actually lost ground on the cut line by three points, but he’s got fewer drivers to worry about now and his success on the Daytona Road Course is promising for the Roval. Elliott v. Harvick is looming large. Nobody’s all that safe.
In broader implications…
Bubba Wallace is the first Black driver to win a race at the highest NASCAR level since Wendell Scott did it in 1963. 48 years. Wendell Scott wasn’t even given the trophy that day. Wallace is only the second Black winner ever in a sport based in the South, based in the states with the nation’s largest Black populations proportionally, based near places where Bubba Wallace (Concord, NC) and team owner Michael Jordan (Wilmington, NC) grew up. This is an historic event, a great milestone in both NASCAR history and American history. Bubba Wallace won a race. Hopefully it’s the first of many. Either way, though, Wallace is now a Cup Series winner, and that will never be taken away.
Videos
The Larson accident:
The Larson post-accident blown tire caused by the accident:
The Bowman accident:
The Byron accident:
Asher!!!!!
