It’s been a long wait—58 years to be exact—but NASCAR finally has its second Black Cup Series race winner, per ESPN.
On Monday, Bubba Wallace was leading the YellaWood 500 with three laps to go in stage two when the already rain-delayed race was red-flagged due to inclement weather. As such, after a 45-minute wait, he was declared the winner, and the 27-year-old trailblazer finally achieved what had often felt unattainable throughout the course of his career.
“Got some credibility to my name now,” Wallace said after his historic win. “I’m just like, ‘Finally, I’m a winner and I’m a winner in the Cup level,’ and it’s just like ‘Hell yeah!’ It was a huge weight lifted off my shoulders.”
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In August, the family of Wendell Scott, who became the first Black driver to win a NASCAR Cup Series race back in 1963, finally received the trophy from his historic victory. As we previously reported at The Root, Scott’s trophy was nowhere to be found after he was declared the winner hours after the race:
Scott passed Richard Petty with 25 laps remaining at Speedway Park in Jacksonville on Dec. 1, 1963, in the Jacksonville 200.
Buck Baker, who actually finished second, was declared the winner and received the trophy in a Victory Lane celebration. Race officials discovered hours after the race that Scott was the actual winner by a full two laps on the rest of the field. But he was not credited with the victory for another two years and his family has long pushed for a proper celebration.
Thankfully, although Wallace has faced his own share of adversity throughout the course of his racing career, he was spared a similar injustice after his win on Monday. But in speaking to reporters afterward, he also didn’t allow his historic victory to didn’t stop him from being transparent in addressing the challenges he’s faced as a Black man in an overwhelmingly white sport.
Source: Bubba Wallace Becomes 1st Black Driver to Win NASCAR Cup Series Race Since 1963
