Bubba Wallace Becomes First Black Driver To Win A Major Race On Indianapolis’ Oval

By Michael Marot

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Bubba Wallace climbed out of the No. 23 car Sunday, pumped his fists, found his family and savored every precious moment of a historic Brickyard 400 victory.

He deserved every minute of it.

The 31-year-old Wallace overcame a tenuous 18-minute rain delay, two tantalizing overtimes, fears about running out of fuel late and the hard-charging defending race champ, Kyle Larson, on back-to-back restarts to become the first Black driver to win a major race on Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s 2.5-mile oval. No Black driver has won the Indianapolis 500, and Formula 1 raced on the track’s road course.

“This one’s really cool,” Wallace said. “Coming off Turn 4, I knew I was going to get there — unless we ran out of gas. I was surprised I wasn’t crying like a little baby.”

His third career NASCAR Cup victory delivered Wallace’s first victory in the series’ four crown jewel events, the others being the Daytona 500, Coca-Cola 600 and Southern 500. It also snapped a 100-race winless streak that dated to 2022 at Kansas and locked up a playoff spot. His only other win came at Talladega in 2021.

The final gap was 0.222 seconds, but that was no measure of the consternation he faced.