{"id":98004,"date":"2025-07-28T00:14:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-28T00:14:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/98004\/"},"modified":"2025-07-28T00:14:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T00:14:13","slug":"bubba-wallace-becomes-first-black-driver-to-win-a-major-race-on-indianapolis-oval","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/98004\/","title":{"rendered":"Bubba Wallace becomes first Black driver to win a major race on Indianapolis’ oval"},"content":{"rendered":"

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) \u2014 Bubba Wallace climbed out of the No. 23 car Sunday, pumped his fists, found his family<\/a> and savored every precious moment of a historic Brickyard 400 victory.<\/p>\n

He deserved minute of it.<\/p>\n

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,<\/a> on back-to-back restarts to become the first Black driver to win a major race on Indianapolis Motor Speedway\u2019s 2.5-mile oval. No Black driver has won the Indianapolis 500, and Formula 1 raced on the track\u2019s road course.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis one\u2019s really cool,\u201d Wallace said. \u201cComing off Turn 4, I knew I was going to get there \u2014 unless we ran out of gas. I was surprised I wasn\u2019t crying like a little baby.\u201d<\/p>\n

His third career NASCAR Cup victory<\/a> delivered Wallace\u2019s first victory in the series\u2019 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. <\/p>\n

The final gap was 0.222 seconds, but that was no measure of the consternation he faced.<\/p>\n

Larson cut a 5.057-second deficit with 14 laps to go to about three seconds with six laps left as the yellow flag came out for the rain. The cars then rolled to a stop on pit lane with four laps remaining, forcing Wallace to think and rethink his restart strategy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole time I\u2019m thinking are we going? Are we not?\u201d he said. \u201cI will say I leaned more towards \u2018I know we\u2019re going to go back racing. Be ready. Don\u2019t get complacent here.\u201d <\/p>\n

Wallace made sure of it. <\/p>\n

He beat Larson through the second turn on the first restart only to have a crash behind him force a second overtime, forcing his crew to recalculate whether they had enough fuel to finish the race or whether he needed to surrender the lead and refuel.<\/p>\n

In Wallace\u2019s mind, there was no choice.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first thing that went through my mind was, \u2018Here we go again,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cBut then I said, `I want to win this straight up. I want to go back racing.\u2019 Here we are.\u201d<\/p>\n

He beat Larson off the restart again and pulled away, preventing Larson from becoming the race\u2019s fourth back-to-back winner.<\/p>\n

The victory also alleviated the frustration Wallace felt Saturday<\/a> when he spent most of the qualifying session on the provisional pole only to see Chase Briscoe claim the No. 1 starting spot with one of the last runs in the session. <\/p>\n

On Sunday, he made sure there was no repeat, providing an added boost to the 23XI Racing team co-owned by basketball Hall of Famer Michael Jordan and last week\u2019s race winner, Denny Hamlin, as it continues to battle NASCAR in court over its charter status.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose last 20 laps there were ups and downs and I was telling myself \u2018You won\u2019t be able to do it,\u2019\u201d Wallace said. \u201cOnce I\u2019d seen it was Larson, I knew he won here last year and he\u2019s arguably the best in the field. So to beat the best, we had to be the best today.\u201d<\/p>\n

The other big race \u2014 the In-Season Challenge \u2014 went to Ty Gibbs, who had a better car than Ty Dillon in qualifying and on race day. Gibbs finished 21st o win the inaugural March Madness-like single-elimination tournament and collect the $1 million prize.<\/p>\n

Dillon, a surprise championship round entrant after making the field as the 32nd and final driver, finished 28th.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey brought me money guns and they jammed so I decided to take all the money and throwing it to the fans and they were all wrestling and fighting over it,\u201d said Gibbs, who also received a title belt and a ring. \u201cBut it\u2019s super cool. It\u2019s a cool opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tire troubles<\/p>\n

At different points, Austin Cindric and three-time Cup champion Joey Logano appeared to be in control of the race, but tire problems took them out of contention. Eric Jones also was knocked out of the race when his right front tire came off between Turns 3 and 4, sending him hard into the outside wall on Lap 91.<\/p>\n

They weren\u2019t the only drivers who made early exits.<\/p>\n

Ross Chastain was the first out after just 18 laps when a tap from Michael McDowell sent Chastain\u2019s car spinning into the third turn wall and caused heavy damage.<\/p>\n

The others who were out before Lap 100 were Austin Dillon, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Cody Ware.<\/p>\n

Weathering the storm<\/p>\n

Series officials were concerned enough about the threat of rain that they moved up the start time by 10 minutes. Fifteen minutes probably would have eliminated the rain delay.<\/p>\n

But the threat of rain impacted the race long before the delay. Early in the second stage, some teams informed drivers rain was expected near the midway point and it seemed to increase the aggressiveness earlier in the race than expected.<\/p>\n

Monster advice<\/p>\n

Cookie Monster made it to the track Sunday, too. The beloved Sesame Street character, who served as the Brickyard\u2019s grand marshal, attended driver introductions and took a handful of questions before the race and even offered some advice to the drivers.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t stop and ask for directions,\u201d the furry blue character said.<\/p>\n

Up next<\/p>\n

Cup drivers will continue their brief Midwestern tour next Sunday when they race at Iowa.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP auto racing: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/auto-racing<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"INDIANAPOLIS (AP) \u2014 Bubba Wallace climbed out of the No. 23 car Sunday, pumped his fists, found his…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":98005,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[3881,22237,5218,4703,22019,36431,11130,64134,57,6323,2862,9650,15865,25434,5219,521,519,2068,11239,62,61,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-98004","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ap-top-news","9":"tag-austin-dillon","10":"tag-auto-racing","11":"tag-automobile-racing","12":"tag-bubba-wallace","13":"tag-cody-ware","14":"tag-denny-hamlin","15":"tag-eric-jones","16":"tag-general-news","17":"tag-in-state-wire","18":"tag-indiana","19":"tag-joey-logano","20":"tag-kyle-larson","21":"tag-michael-mcdowell","22":"tag-nascar-racing","23":"tag-nc-state-wire","24":"tag-north-carolina","25":"tag-race-and-ethnicity","26":"tag-ross-chastain","27":"tag-sports","28":"tag-u-s-news","29":"tag-united-states","30":"tag-unitedstates","31":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114927977350232250","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}