‘One Wrong Thing and Career Over’ – Bubba Wallace Divulged How Sponsor Pressure Affected His NASCAR Approach in Bombshell Interview in 2020

If there ever were a survey conducted on the most divisive drivers in NASCAR, Bubba Wallace would probably figure somewhere among the top 5 of the list. The 23XI Racing driver has received a lot of flak for both, his on-field behavior as well as his off-field actions.

In an interview with Google’s Global Director of Inclusion, Sherice Torres, in 2020 Bubba said, “And also lot of it [his motivation to speak up against social issues] was pressure from fans. People knew that I was an African-American driver in a predominantly white sport. I got a lot of tweets “What does Bubba Wallace think? Is he gonna say anything? This will be huge for Bubba Wallace to step up and be a leader in this.”

“And I’ve gotten those tweets when other tragic events have happened and years passed. It’s such a tough way to navigate through sponsors, teams, you gotta be careful.”

“You say one wrong thing and your career could be over. It’s crazy how that is but that’s just how it works, so. You know, this point I was like “You know what, sponsors can sit on the sidelines, teams can sit on the sidelines, I’m gonna speak my mind here” and that was that.”

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Bubba has been at the heart of the progress NASCAR has made in terms of racial equality and inclusivity. As he mentions, it isn’t always easy to speak up given the amounts of variables involved. But his teaming up with Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin for sure must have given him a little more support than what he earlier had.

Bubba Wallace used to be among those who would never speak up for this

Bubba had been a part of NASCAR for a long while before he started speaking up about racial issues. But he never spoke up prior to 2020. He was asked about it in the interview.

Sherice asked him, “…In an interview, your mom said that she was a bit shocked or surprised that you started speaking out on race. What was the moment that changed this for you?”

“Yeah, I think the Ahmaud Arbery video. I can still vision everything that goes on in the video to this moment and that really sparked something, didn’t really know what it was until maybe the George Floyd incident that we’d seen and the power of social media and camera phones is unreal.

“So you can’t get away from anything. As much as you didn’t wanna see that, it’s just on repeat and that – those incidents were kind of the final straw that broke the camel’s back.”

Ahmaud Arbery was a 25-year-old African-American man who was murdered in a racially motivated crime in Georgia in 2020. The whole incident was recorded on mobile phones, and the footage was used for the successful conviction of all 3 accused involved in the murder.

The same year saw another hate crime with the murder of George Floyd by policemen in Minneapolis. Floyd’s killing was what pushed a widespread movement against racial profiling and crimes in the US under the Black Lives Matter movement.

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Bubba has been successful in some ways – his biggest victory coming in the form of banning Confederate flags from NASCAR races. Though his actions have received mixed reactions, lets hope his on track performances do advocate for positive reactions when the next season arrives.