‘It feels poetic’
Wendell Scott’s family was cheering hard for Bubba Wallace; then came the phone call
In the afterglow of Bubba Wallace’s historic win at Talladega on Monday, the second African American NASCAR driver to ever win a Cup race paid tribute to the first.
Wallace got on the phone with Frank Scott, the 74-yearold son of Wendell Scott, who was the first Black driver to win a Cup race way back in 1963. In 2,000-plus races at NASCAR’S highest level over the past 58 years, it had never been done again — not until Wallace won Monday in a rainshortened race at the iconic Deep South track in rural Alabama.
Scott recounted his conversation with Wallace in our interview Tuesday, saying part of it went like this.
Wallace: “I felt your Dad looking down on me from heaven today.”
Scott: “Oh yeah he was. Did you hear what he was saying up there?”
Wallace: “No. What was it?” Scott: “He was saying: ‘Bubba, don’t worry. It’s not gonna stop raining.”
Scott said Wallace screamed with laughter when he heard that line, and there’s been a lot of that sort of joy going around in the Scott family over the past 48 hours.
They’ve been cheering for Wallace to win a Cup race all year. And now — just a few weeks after the Scott family finally received the trophy from NASCAR that the late Wendell Scott had been wrongly deprived of in 1963 — Wallace has indeed won.
“It feels poetic,” Frank Scott said, who watched the race from his living room in Danville, Va., with a replica of his father’s 1963 trophy sitting just below his big-screen TV. “And it feels a little mystical.”
As Wallace’s first Cup win reverberated Tuesday, I spoke to three people at length about it: Wendell Scott’s son, and his grandson, and an aspiring teenaged driver who Bubba Wallace has mentored. Listening to them made me understand more fully what this victory truly meant.
No one is going to remember many details about the race itself in 20 years. The rain; the fact it was on a Monday; all that will fade.
What people will remember is what this meant in a sport with an often racist past, a sport in which Black drivers have had precious few opportunities, a sport that white
male drivers have dominated for decades.
Warrick Scott Sr., who is Frank’s son and Wendell’s grandson, said the symbolism of Wallace’s win (for a racing team co-owned by Charlotte Hornets owner Michael Jordan) couldn’t be overstated. He rushed home from a school carpool line in Danville to make sure to see it live.
“I’ve been waiting for that moment literally my entire life,” Warrick Scott said. “To see that moment for a Black man?! I didn’t see my grandfather win. I just know that he won. So to watch this together with my wife and my two sons who are 5 and 11 years old and who are just starting to understand our family’s legacy — that was a marvelous feeling.”
That feeling resonated around the country. Rajah Caruth — a 19-year-old Black driver from Washington, D.C., who Wallace has mentored for three years — was watching the race in his apartment. Caruth finished a career-best third in an ARCA race on Saturday.
“Being Black in America and chasing some of the same dreams that Bubba has realized, I know that representation is so important,” Caruth said. “So to see Bubba win and
then for him to be as elated as he was afterward — I’m not going to say I was crying, but it was close. It meant a lot. Not just to him, but to me.” Wendell Scott’s 1963 win Wendell Scott’s lone win, in 1963, was shrouded in controversy. It came in Jacksonville, Fla. And although Scott crossed the line first, he wasn’t originally announced as the winner. A scoring error meant that Buck Baker, a popular white driver, was celebrated instead, posing for photos and getting the traditional kiss from the white beauty queen.
NASCAR only awarded the win to Scott several hours later, when he asked for a review of the scoresheets. The future NASCAR Hall of Famer left quietly, with his $1,000 winner’s check and his two-man crew. But he never got the race trophy, until NASCAR presented his family with a new trophy to commemorate the 1963 win in August 2021 in Daytona, Fla. (Wendell Scott himself died at age 69, in 1990, of cancer).
Wallace at least got his trophy right away Monday, although some critics on social media tried to denigrate his victory because the lap count was shortened by rain (as dozens of races are at dozens
of tracks are every year). As Wallace said Monday, mimicking those detractors’ remarks: “Bubba won because it rained.”
But every driver knew the rain was coming, and it was Wallace who maneuvered his way to the front. He won, and he’s going to win again, just like he did in the Truck Series. Relieved? Yes. Surprised? No Warrick Scott, Wendell’s grandson, said people shouldn’t act surprised Wallace got his first Cup victory.
“We should be especially careful in being surprised that he has won,” Warrick Scott said. “If we’re too surprised that he has won, that sets a false precedent that African American males can’t achieve in the sport. Relieved that he won? Yes. Surprised? No.”
To the Scott family, the fact that the win came in Talladega also healed some past wounds. Not because of the noose controversy from a year ago — and remember, Wallace was blameless in that odd incident no matter what then-president Donald Trump wanted you to believe — but because Wendell Scott’s career basically ended in Talladega.
In 1973, Scott was involved in an enormous wreck at the track. “My father suffered the most serious injuries of his
entire career that day,” Frank Scott said. “Basically it put us out of business. He broke his left leg in seven places. He broke his pelvis in two places. He broke several ribs. His kidneys were damaged. He got a concussion. So we didn’t have any fond memories of Talladega. But now we have this one.”
The Scott family runs the Wendell Scott Foundation, which provides services for atrisk youth from ages 8-18. In particular, it supports educational development through Stem-based programs, mentorship and culture activities.
“This is a special moment in history,” Warrick Scott said. “Bubba’s victory should translate into umpteen opportunities for African Americans who are impoverished and underserved. The win happened on the track, but we will feel the riptide in the community. And then it will happen again, because he’s going to win again.”
Yes, he will. And we shouldn’t be surprised.
Wallace is a good driver with good sponsorship. He’s finally joined Scott — who had no sponsor, ever, and mostly raced homemade, secondhand cars — in Victory Lane.
It shouldn’t have taken 58 years for this to happen. But at least, finally, it did.