With Wallace, sport takes big step
African-American driver embraces Cup opportunity
Darrell Wallace Jr. will become the mainstream embodiment of NASCAR inclusion and diversity this weekend because his father is white and his mother is black.
It’s a mantle he understands is his, seems willing to accept and has prepared for as he has graduated through NASCAR’s Drive for Diversity program and stints with Joe Gibbs Racing and Roush Fenway Racing.
Sunday will mark a significant NASCAR moment when the 23year-old makes his first career start in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (Pocono 400, 3 p.m. ET, Fox Sports 1), replacing injured Aric Almirola at Richard Petty Motorsports.
Better known as “Bubba,” he was born in Alabama, grew up in North Carolina, where he’s wellknown, and sounds like it.
But the fact that he will be the first African American to make a start in NASCAR’s top series since Bill Lester in 2006 matters. It will be optically powerful for an African American to climb into the most Southern of NASCAR race cars, the iconic No. 43 Ford that seven-time champion Richard Petty drove. That’s not to say that intolerance is a uniquely Southern problem, but NASCAR, more than any other sport, deals with the imagery of Confederate rebel flags and what they mean to different people. NASCAR is inclusive, Wallace said — “I think that’s been shut down a long time ago” — but he knows this moment is important.
“This is a huge step for NASCAR, the whole sport in general, for bringing diversity to its toptier level. I’m glad to be leading the forefront of that right now,” he said in a national teleconference this week. “It just shows that we’re trying to bring in a new demographic. We’re trying to bring in a new face, get a younger generation, no matter what color, what age. We’re trying to get everybody involved to bring NASCAR back.”
Oddly, Wallace’s value to the sport, if he can prove to be the proper mix of successful and engaging, might be greater because of his age than his color. Pal and frequent Twitter foil Ryan Blaney, 23, is in a similar situation driving the No. 21 Ford for the legendary Wood Brothers, although his term will continue until Team Penske opts to bring its work-study employee home. Wallace must hope for sponsorship and a ride somewhere in 2018.
Blaney awoke Wallace with a text request Tuesday.
“He wants a picture this weekend. I was like ‘OK,’ ” Wallace said. “He was like, ‘ We’re driving the two most iconic cars in the sport this weekend.’ We definitely have to capitalize on that. That’s huge.
“That’s awesome for me to get my first start driving the No. 43 for Richard Petty and everybody at RPM. Then the other side of it is the first African American since 2006. That’s a lot of history behind it.
“I’ve always said dealing with that, I like to let the results speak for itself, let the results come in, let the history fall in behind that, not focus on the big spotlight, the African-American side, the iconic number. Let all that funnel in af- ter we have our good runs, get out there on the racetrack and show everybody we can do it.”
That’s especially important for Wallace as Almirola could be back in two months.
In some ways he likely would prefer to have avoided, Wallace has proved that NASCAR, as an industry, is inclusive. As in equally cruel to most every demographic. Fourth in the second-tier Xfinity Series after 11 starts, Wallace has lost his RFR ride, as the No. 6 Ford program will be shuttered after this weekend because of sponsor shortfalls.
But he also knows the powerful wanted this. He has never won in 83 starts in NASCAR’s secondtier developmental series, but in a 2013 Camping World Truck Series race at Martinsville Speedway he became the first African American to win a NASCAR national series event since Wendell Scott in 1963. Overall, he won five times in 44 truck starts, finishing third in points for Kyle Busch Motorsports in 2014.
“I think everybody wanted to see this opportunity happen,” he said. “NASCAR wanted to see it, I believe, for multiple reasons.”
And now Wallace gets to see it through.