NASCAR President Claims Bubba Wallace “Crossed the Line” and Went Against the DNA of the Sport: “This Isn’t WWE”

2022 was a year, just like any other year in NASCAR, full of eventful races, controversial incidents, and heated coming together of drivers. But if one needed differentiation between essence and nuisance, look no further than the Joey Logano-William Byron incident and the Kyle Larson-Bubba Wallace one.

Speaking about his perspective on the Logano-Byron incident at Darlington, NASCAR President Steve Phelps concluded it to be a natural occurrence in the environment it took place.

“To me, I think it’s kind of what is the DNA of NASCAR. When you have 40 drivers on a racetrack going the speeds that they’re going at all trying to beat and bang and pass each other, they’re going to have disagreements about it,” Phelps said according to The Athletic. “That’s a perfect example, Joey and William saw that very differently from each other.”

This, according to Phelps, is “exactly” what NASCAR wants. But then again, it does go over the line sometimes, just like it did in Las Vegas late in the season.

“The Bubba Wallace situation, obviously, crossed the line in our opinion — but we don’t create the storylines. This isn’t WWE. It unfolds as it unfolds,” Phelps described. “It’s having some races that are not as competitive as other races. That just happens. Some races are extraordinary, and others are not.”

“But it’s whatever our drivers are doing on that racetrack, whatever the crews are doing in the pits, and the strategic moves crew chiefs are making is what makes NASCAR NASCAR.”

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Bubba Wallace wrecking and pushing Kyle Larson led to “some difficult conversations”

Just as Bubba Wallace retaliated against Kyle Larson in the way he did, which he followed up by pushing the then-defending Cup champion during a running race, Steve Phelps was in the suite with some NBA players.

Naturally, he had to describe what happened, but despite the guests being “somewhat novices,” everyone knew what they saw. Not only was it wrong, but shouldn’t have happened.

“You don’t want to see that. You want drivers to show their emotion, for sure, but on the racetrack going 165 miles per hour is not something that we want to see. Bubba knows that,” he described.

Phelps confessed that he knew right off the bat, the situation was “going to be difficult.” 

“‘I’ll take the race fan hat off and I’ll put the sanctioning body hat on and say, “OK, this is going to be tough. We’re going to have to have some difficult conversations,”’ which we did,” he added.

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