NASCAR insiders react to Bubba Wallace getting booed before Brickyard 400, post-race flip

With a little less than two dozen laps remaining in the Brickyard 400, Joey Logano blew a tire and Bubba Wallace took over as the race leader. It was a long way away from the finish line, though.

And given the backdrop against which the day started — with hearty boos for Wallace from the crowd — a win from Wallace wasn’t necessarily what most had in mind. Yet it was Wallace who took command in a pair of overtime battles against Kyle Larson to take home the win, a crown jewel victory.

Then, according to a pair of NASCAR insiders for The Athletic, the scene changed. Suddenly, Bubba Wallace was the fan favorite.

“What a scene, though, really. We saw some stuff on the frontstretch you don’t usually see, where obviously he’d gotten booed in intros, and I don’t think it was a popular win among the fans or something, but I guess his haters quickly left,” Jeff Gluck said on The Teardown podcast. “And I’ve never heard people at a racetrack before going, ‘BUB-BA! BUB-BA!’

“I mean there was a lot of very excited people that stuck around, that stuck around for the bricks ceremony, the victory lane stuff. They were clamoring to get a view of it. People were emotional about it. It was very interesting to see that. You were just like, ‘Whoa, this is kind of new.'”

It had been a long time since Bubba Wallace’s last win, so maybe that was part of it. Wallace snapped a 100-race winless streak with the victory.

Then the driver of the No. 23 car got to celebrate at one of NASCAR’s historic venues. There was the celebration just outside the car after a lengthy burnout. Then there was the kissing of the bricks.

What struck the two insiders for The Athletic was how stark the contrast was in the post-race celebration from the normal vibe Bubba Wallace is greeted with. It was different.

“It was, it was neat to see for a driver who gets the loudest boos pre-race for no justifiable reason, by the way,” Jordan Bianchi said. “I feel like a lot of people who boo Bubba boo him for the wrong reasons. And to actually have that moment where people are cheering him, encouraging him, was really cool.
“Particularly when the guy gets out of the car and everything, it’s like, OK. Then he’s walking along the path to victory lane and people are cheering for him. They’re cheering for Freddie Kraft. They’re cheering for his crew chief. Anybody they could spot they’re chanting their name. Then when they go up to victory lane it was like, ‘Let’s go, Bubba!'”

The shift in tone toward Bubba Wallace was a unique moment for the sport. Wallace had just become the first Black driver to win a major race at Indianapolis.

And the crowd was behind him. Seemingly fully.

“To me it kind of resonated just because of the ‘let’s go’ part of it, and it was like, ‘This is cool to see,'” Bianchi said. “This is cool to see for a driver who has dealt with a lot of nonsense and deals with a lot of nonsense. To have a moment and feel appreciated, he deserved it. He really does deserve it.”