Mobile Native Bubba Wallace Captures First NASCAR Cup Win in Rain-Shortened Talladega Race
Mobile's Bubba Wallace won his first NASCAR Cup Series race at Talladega when rain shortened the playoff event, becoming the second Black winner.
Mobile native Bubba Wallace is a NASCAR Cup Series winner, taking the checkered flag at Talladega Superspeedway when steady rain ended the playoff race early.
Wallace had surged to the front of the field five laps before the second rain stoppage of the afternoon, having navigated his way through an earlier crash that collected much of the pack. NASCAR crews attempted to dry the track for nearly 45 minutes, but with darkness approaching and the rain refusing to let up, officials called the race and put Wallace in victory lane.
The win carried historic weight: Wallace became just the second Black driver ever to win at NASCAR’s top level, and the first since Wendell Scott’s breakthrough in 1963 — a gap of nearly six decades.
Wallace drives for 23XI Racing, the Cup Series team co-owned by driver Denny Hamlin and basketball legend Michael Jordan. The organization’s first Cup victory coming at Talladega — an Alabama track less than 250 miles from Wallace’s hometown — made the moment even sweeter for the Mobile native.
A race decided by rain
The YellaWood 500 had been postponed from Sunday by rain and was run on Monday, Oct. 4, 2021. It was stopped after 117 of its scheduled 188 laps. Wallace was born in Mobile in 1993 and grew up in Concord, North Carolina.
Wendell Scott’s victory, the only previous Cup Series win by a Black driver, came on Dec. 1, 1963, at Speedway Park in Jacksonville, Florida. Scott was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2015.