Bubba Wallace: From K&N Rookie to Cup Winner at Talladega and Indianapolis

Who is Bubba Wallace?

Known as Bubba, William Darrell Wallace Jr. is an American stock car driver. He is a regular in the Cup Series, where he pilots the No. 23 Toyota for 23XI Racing. He has built his career across three national series.

Before reaching the Cup Series he worked through a development path that included Toyota and Ford programmes. He first raced for Joe Gibbs Racing and then for Roush Fenway Racing, before taking a Cup seat with Richard Petty Motorsports.

His first full-time Cup ride came with Richard Petty Motorsports in the team's famous No. 43, which he took over when Aric Almirola left the team. The later move to 23XI Racing brought him his first wins at the top level.

From a K&N rookie title chase to a first Cup win at Talladega, a Kansas victory and the first Black winner at Indianapolis's major race.

How did his racing start?

Wallace began racing at the age of nine, in the Bandolero and Legends car series and in local late model events. In 2005 he won 35 of the 48 Bandolero Series races held that year, which marked him out early as a driver to watch.

The 2008 season saw him become the youngest winner at Franklin County Speedway in Virginia. Those early titles led naturally to the national developmental ladder that followed.

How did his K&N East years go?

In 2010 Wallace stepped into the K&N Pro Series East, a regional feeder circuit, racing for Rev Racing under NASCAR's Drive for Diversity scheme. Joe Gibbs Racing also took him on as a development driver. Those seasons laid the groundwork for his Xfinity and Truck starts.

His first series victory came at Greenville-Pickens Speedway, making him the youngest winner there. He was also the youngest winner in the series' history, which had started life as the Busch North Series in 1987. Lee USA Speedway in New Hampshire later gave him a second win that season.

He finished third in points and was named Rookie of the Year, the first African American to win that honour in a NASCAR series. In 2011 he collected three victories, at Richmond, Columbus and Dover, and finished second in points behind Max Gresham.

In 2012 he switched to Joe Gibbs Racing for a full K&N East campaign. At Greenville-Pickens, the second East event of the year, he took a win that was his first with the team.

What did his Xfinity Series years look like?

His first national-series start came in 2012 at Iowa Speedway, where he piloted a Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota numbered 20 and was ninth after most of the race inside the top ten. Later that year he won his first Xfinity pole at Dover.

The 2014 return was again with Joe Gibbs, this time in car 20. A 34th-place result at Talladega came after he was caught up in The Big One while running 13th, and a seventh-place finish at Daytona followed in July.

For 2015 he moved to Roush Fenway Racing in the No. 6 Ford, with Chad Norris as crew chief. He finished the season with fourteen top-10 finishes and seventh in the points, but Daniel Suarez beat him to the Rookie of the Year award by a single top-10 finish.

In 2016 he finished second at Dover behind Erik Jones and third at California, which matched his career best at that point. He finished the year eleventh in the points and made the inaugural Xfinity Series Chase, reaching the round of eight before he was eliminated after Phoenix.

The 2017 season started strongly, with a run of sixth-place finishes, but Roush Fenway announced the suspension of his Xfinity team after the Pocono race weekend because of sponsorship problems. At the time he was fourth in the points. He signed with Biagi-DenBeste Racing and finished tenth at Chicagoland.

Did he win in the Truck Series?

In 2013 Wallace contested a full Truck Series season, driving car No. 54 for Kyle Busch Motorsports. In April at Rockingham, Ron Hornaday Jr. turned him under a caution flag, and his truck hit the outside wall. Hornaday was sent to the rear of the field and later penalized heavily.

October 2013 brought the Kroger 200 at Martinsville Speedway, a win that made him the first Black driver to triumph in a national NASCAR series since 1963. The only earlier win by a Black driver had been Wendell Scott's 1963 victory in the Grand National Division. He finished eighth in the points in that rookie season.

In 2014 he came back full-time in car 54. In June he took the Gateway race known as the Drivin' for Linemen 200, and three weeks later he held off Kyle Larson and Ron Hornaday Jr. to win the Mudsummer Classic at Eldora Speedway. He switched to the No. 34 for the Martinsville race in tribute to Wendell Scott and went on to win it. He closed the season with a win at Homestead, which gave him four wins and third in the points.

Later Truck Series starts were occasional. He won at Michigan in 2017 for MDM Motorsports, but the truck was found to have illegal vent holes, which brought a penalty for the crew chief and the team. In 2018 he finished 14th at Kansas after running out of fuel from fifth with four laps to go, and in 2019 he ran for AM Racing at Martinsville and Texas, finishing 10th and 20th. He also made an appearance in the Bristol dirt race in 2021, finishing 11th.

How did his Cup debut come about?

On 5 June 2017 Richard Petty Motorsports announced that Wallace would drive the No. 43 Ford while Aric Almirola was injured. The move made him the first Black driver to start a Cup race since Bill Lester in 2006. It was the first step toward a full-time Cup career.

His debut came at the Pocono 400, where he started 16th and finished 26th after a speeding penalty and a pit-road error. He finished 11th at Kentucky after a last-lap wreck.

Wallace was officially introduced as the new full-time driver of the No. 43 in October 2017. He is the first Black driver with a full-time Cup seat since Wendell Scott's 1971 season.

The 2018 season opened with a second-place finish in the Daytona 500 behind Austin Dillon. That result stands as the best a full-time rookie has managed in the race, and he reached the start-finish line ahead of Denny Hamlin by .002 seconds. He scored two more top-10 finishes that year and finished twenty-eighth in the points.

What happened in the 2019 and 2020 Cup seasons?

The 2019 season brought mixed results, but Wallace showed his pace at the Monster Energy NASCAR All-Star Race, where he won the second stage of the Open and finished fifth in the main event. At the Brickyard 400 he ran in the top ten all day and finished third.

His season was not without controversy. In November 2019 NASCAR levied a $50,000 fine and a fifty-point deduction for his Texas spin, judged a deliberate act to manipulate the race after a tire failure. He finished twenty-eighth in the final points standings.

For 2020 Jerry Baxter, who had been his crew chief in the Trucks, returned to his team. At Las Vegas in the Pennzoil 400 he finished sixth, his best result on a 1.5-mile track. The season was halted after four races because of the COVID-19 pandemic, with him 18th in the points.

He ended 2020 22nd in the final standings. In September he announced that he would leave Richard Petty Motorsports at the end of the season.

How did 23XI Racing and his first Cup win come about?

In September 2020 Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin announced a new Cup team called 23XI Racing, with Wallace as its first driver in the No. 23. In the 2021 Daytona 500 he qualified fourth, but he was classified 17th after a fiery last-lap wreck.

A second-place finish at the August Daytona race was later increased from third after a post-race inspection failure on another team's car. In the Daytona race that year he also equalled his best Cup result, which he had earlier reached in the 2018 Daytona 500.

On 4 October 2021 he won his first Cup race at Talladega, which was shortened by rain. The win was the first by a Black driver in the Cup Series since Wendell Scott's 1963 result, and it was also a first for a McDonald's-backed car since Jimmy Spencer in 1994.

What did 2022 bring?

In 2022 Wallace raced alongside a new 23XI teammate, Kurt Busch. He finished runner-up to Austin Cindric at the Daytona 500 by just 0.036 seconds. At Atlanta he was in contention late but finished 13th after a last-lap wreck. It was a season of highs and frustrations.

At Michigan he won his first career pole and finished second to Kevin Harvick. He missed the playoffs after a must-win race at Daytona, but in September he won at Kansas, where he led the closing 67 laps and fended off Denny Hamlin.

The same season brought a difficult incident at Las Vegas. Kyle Larson pushed past him and Kevin Harvick, Wallace scraped the outside wall, and he then retaliated with a hook on Larson that wrecked both cars. A shoving match followed under caution. NASCAR suspended him for one race, and he finished the campaign 19th in the drivers' standings.

Did he make the playoffs in 2023?

Wallace began 2023 with a 20th-place finish at the Daytona 500. That improvement carried him into the playoffs for the first time, and he finished 10th in points with five top-five and ten top-10 finishes. The playoff run was the high point of that year.

The season was also his first without a win since his 2021 victory at Talladega. He advanced to the Round of 12 after the Bristol night race and was eliminated at the Charlotte Roval.

What went wrong in 2024?

The 2024 campaign began well, with two fifth-place results to open the year. He then struggled after a 35th-place finish at Las Vegas, before recovering with a fourth at Martinsville. Several penalties shaped the year. The penalties and the lost points made the year harder to recover from.

At the Chicago Street Race in July he was spun by Alex Bowman, and after the race he collided with Bowman's car on the cool-down lap. NASCAR fined him $50,000 for violating its Member Code of Conduct.

He missed the playoffs once Chase Briscoe won at Darlington. After the Martinsville playoff race, the No. 23 car lost fifty owner and driver points and fined Wallace and the team $100,000 each for race manipulation, after he faked a tire failure to let Christopher Bell pass him. Crew chief Bootie Barker was also suspended for the Phoenix finale.

Wallace finished the season 18th in the points, with no wins, fourteen top-10 finishes and 878 points. In October 2024 Charles Denike, who came from the Truck Series, was named as his crew chief for 2025, with Barker moving to another role in the organisation.

How did 2025 end his winless run?

Wallace began 2025 by winning a Daytona qualifying duel, though he finished 29th after a DNF in the race. At Homestead he was in contention to win but was passed by Alex Bowman late on. It ended a stretch with no wins in the previous seasons.

His first win of the season came at Indianapolis on 27 July, when he held off Kyle Larson after a rain delay and a double overtime finish in the Brickyard 400. It was the first major race win by a Black driver on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval.

How has 2026 gone so far?

The 2026 campaign opened with tenth at the Daytona 500. Atlanta followed the next week with an eighth, and at Coronado in the summer he took second after a loose wheel cost him two laps. The results show a consistent start to the year.

He finished sixth at Chicagoland and at North Wilkesboro. At the Atlanta summer race he ran second on the last lap, until he was penalized for a pass made below the yellow line, which dropped him to 29th.

How did the 2020 noose investigation unfold?

On 21 June 2020 a member of Wallace's team reported that a noose had been found in his garage stall at Talladega Superspeedway. NASCAR condemned the act as heinous and said it would consult law enforcement. Wallace responded that he was deeply pained by the reminder of how far the sport still had to go.

Before the next day's GEICO 500, the drivers and crews pushed his car to the front of pit road as a sign of solidarity. The day after the race the FBI reached its conclusion: the incident was not a hate crime against him. Investigators described a pull-down rope with a loop, which had hung in the garage since the 2019 Talladega event.

The FBI finding led to criticism on social media, and Wallace said he was frustrated by the backlash. On 25 June NASCAR released a photograph of the noose taken by security. NASCAR's president explained that it had inspected garages at 29 tracks and found pull-down ropes at 11 garages, but only Wallace's had been tied into a noose.

What is his activism and philanthropy?

He established and leads the Live to be Different Foundation. The National Motorsports Press Association gave him its Pocono Spirit Award for the second quarter of 2020, and Comcast honoured him as Community Champion of the Year for 2020. His public campaigning ran alongside his racing throughout those seasons.

In May 2020 he spoke out about the treatment of African Americans by police after the murder of George Floyd, and he became a visible voice for stock car racing in the Black Lives Matter movement. On 8 June 2020 he urged NASCAR to ban Confederate flags from its races.

On 10 June 2020 NASCAR formally barred the flag from its events. The organisation had asked fans not to display the flag since 2015, but many had continued to do so.

For the 2020 Martinsville race, when no sponsor could be found, his car ran a special paint scheme in support of Black Lives Matter. It carried interlocking hands on the hood and the hashtag on the side, and Richard Petty added a peace symbol to the rear quarter-panel. Wallace finished 11th.

How do his results compare across series?

What is his legacy in NASCAR?

Wallace's legacy rests on a set of firsts, from the Rookie of the Year honour in a NASCAR series to a Cup win that linked him back to Wendell Scott's 1963 result. He is also the first Black winner of a major race on the Indianapolis oval.

His record in the Cup Series, with wins at Talladega, Kansas and Indianapolis, shows a driver who moved from developmental stock car racing to the top of the sport. The record speaks for itself across several seasons and several teams.