Then, before a race in Atlanta, drivers observed a moment of silence to acknowledge racial injustice in the United States. Nascar would drop the video on its social channels. We will listen and learn! #BlackLivesMattters /AYoYdY8IlX- Bubba Wallace June 7, 2020Īs Wallace tells it, the momentum shift began in Atlanta on the Sunday of 7 June, when Jimmie Johnson corralled Wallace and other star drivers for a goodwill video, so affected was the seven-time Cup champion by the brutal killing of George Floyd. That all these dominos could fall in fewer than 72 hours makes Wallace’s Gettysburg moment the fastest three days in stock-car racing history. And though Wallace would finish no better than 11 th in that contest, posterity will remember the Nascar statement he won as a sort of Emancipation Proclamation for the sport. That night his demand for a ban on the flag was met. No, he appeared on cable news and called on Nascar to ban displays of the Confederate flag then, barely 48 hours later, he showed up to his next race, in a state that once was home to the seat of the Confederacy, with a Black Lives Matter-themed car. But Wallace, of course, didn’t triumph in a race. It’s been pretty cool to have some new support.”Įxcessive attention is a given for any sports figure who accomplishes a lofty goal. “I think everybody was kinda shocked to see LeBron reach out,” Wallace says “I’ve been talking with Alvin Kamara, running back for the Saints.

Hunkered inside an infield motor coach at Homestead-Miami Speedway hours before a Nascar Cup series race last Sunday, the Richard Petty Motorsports driver was still struggling for battery life amid a deluge of texts and tweets. It would be the height of understatement to say the previous week was hectic for Bubba Wallace.

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