Bubba Wallace wrote his own name in the history books on Sunday. The 23xi driver won the Brickyard 400 on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and became the first black driver to win on the 116-year-old Oval, where black competitors were ever banned. The victory of Wallace ended a 100-race victory drought and hit its ticket in the Nascar Cup series Playoffs. The victory also comes at a time when his team, owned by basketball legend Michael Jordan and the triple Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin, suits Nascar due to alleged violation of antitrust laws with his charter system.
Wallace’s trip to Victory Lane was not as easy as it seemed. The No. 23 Toyota Camry was comfortable in the lead for Kyle Larson with four more laps to go. However, an isolated shower in turn 1 forced a delay and threatened to rain on the parade of 23xi. The field was put together again for overtime, but the team was not sure how much fuel was still in Wallace’s car. If the race would go too much further than the advertised 400 miles, Wallace would either be empty or forced to draw. A crash on the opening round of the extension pushed the race into double extension. Wallace doubled and decided to stay on track. The field safely reached the white flag and Bubba had enough fuel to win. He even had enough left in the tank for a burnout. Wallace said after the race:
“It is incredible. To win here on the Brickyard, knowing how big this race is, all the noise that happens in the background to put that aside, is proof of these people here in this 23 team. It’s getting old around the cut line (for the play -offs).”
Trying for more than a century and fighting is finally rewarded
When Nascar visited the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the inaugural Brickyard 400 in 1994, it was seen as a moment of historical proportions. The race was the first time in 78 years that the course organized a different event than the Indy 500. Only three years earlier, Willy T. Ribbs became the first black driver to qualify and raced in the 500. The 1990s were a Turbulent Decennium for American Open-Wheel Racing, but the period for significant changes laid down on significant changes on the SPEEDE SPEEDAY. By 2000, Indianapolis Formula 1 welcomed as the third major annual race of the song. Lewis Hamilton in particular won the last Grand Prix of the United States on the 2.6-Mile Road Course, which was built especially for the event.
Just like professional baseball, the American Automobile Association once had a men’s agreement to never give racing licenses to black drivers. In contrast to the ban, black business people in Indianapolis created the colored speedway association in the early 1920s. The selection framework of the organization was the Gold and Glory Sweepstakes, a 100 miles race in the mile-lung dirt from the Indiana State Fairgrounds. Racing’s Negro League collapsed after the Sweepstakes of 1936 when Charlie Wiggins, the only four-time winner of the event, had a career-ending accident.
The ultimate goal of the Gold and Glory Sweepstakes was to prove that the stars of the event were worth competing with their white colleagues. AAA would lift his ban and give a racing license to Joie Ray in 1947, the same year that Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier of Baseball. However, no glory and golden driver would ever race in the Indianapolis 500. The victory of Bubba Wallace came 101 years after the first Gold and Glory Sweepstakes, a wait that lasted far too long.
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