Bubba Wallace avoids the mayhem for Indianapolis top-10

By Seth Eggert, Staff Writer

Richard Petty Motorsports driver Bubba Wallace took care of his equipment and avoided the mayhem to score another top-10 finish at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The Race

During the longest run of the Big Machine Hand Sanitizer 400, Wallace slipped a lap down. Luckily, the driver of the No. 43 World Wide Technology 30 Years Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE received the free pass when the caution waved in the middle of green flag pit stops.

That caution, as with four previous cautions were for incidents involving blown tires. Wallace kept his Goodyear Eagles intact and battled just outside the top-10 before race leader Denny Hamlin crashed hard with another flat tire. Crew chief Jerry Baxter kept the No. 43 on track.

In overtime, Wallace battled Michael McDowell, Tyler Reddick, Joey Logano, and Chase Elliott for position. After restarting 10th, the Mobile, AL native slipped back to 11th. Wallace narrowly avoided a last-lap incident between Matt DiBenedetto and Austin Dillon to jump to ninth and finish inside the top-10.

“I guess it is good to be frustrated when you finish in the ninth-place,” admitted Wallace. “All-in-all, it was a good day for this No. 43 World Wide Technology Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE. It was fast. We just did not have the handling underneath us.

“It was good down the straightaways. It did not want to turn very well, especially behind traffic. One of the more frustrating days being behind cars and just trying to maneuver. So, coming out of there with a top-10 finish is good momentum going to the Kentucky Speedway, another good track for us. We will continue the good vibes and keep staying on Jerry to produce good finishes for us.”

Luck of the Draw

In addition to managing his tires, Wallace avoided a massive pile-up on pit road on lap 14. The 26-year-old was just ahead of McDowell, Christopher Bell, and others during the competition caution. As McDowell’s No. 34 carparts.com Ford Mustang slowed for its’ pit stall, mayhem broke out behind.

Seven cars crashed on the narrow pit lane. In the chaos, Brennan Poole clipped the rear tire changer of Ryan Blaney’s team, Zach Price. He was later transported to a local hospital for evaluation. The incident forced a red flag as the AMR Safety Team attended to Price and NASCAR cleaned pit road.

Wallace was ahead of the incident by luck of the draw. There is no qualifying as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. During the draw for the start grid, the NASCAR Cup Series driver ended up 17th, 10 positions ahead of the chaos.

Stats

The ninth-place finish is the third top-10 for Wallace this season and the seventh of his career. It matches his career high three top-10s from his rookie season in 2018. It is also the second straight top-10 that Wallace has earned at Indianapolis; he finished third in last year’s race.

The top-10 finish at The Brickyard moved Wallace from 21st to 19th in the points standings. He is 42-points behind the cutoff for the playoffs, held by Dillon, and 319 behind leader and race winner Kevin Harvick.

Recent Events

The ninth-place finish is the first top-10 for Wallace since Bristol Motor Speedway on May 31. In the time since, he successfully called on NASCAR to ban the Confederate flag from its’ speedways and property. In the first race following the ban, at Martinsville Speedway, one in which he called the ‘biggest race of his career,’ Wallace finished 11th.

Bubba Wallace ends ‘biggest race of career’ 11th at Martinsville

It is also the first top-10 for Wallace since the events that took place at Talladega Superspeedway. At Talladega, the garage pull down rope in his garage stall was tied in the fashion of a hangman’s noose. After an investigation, the FBI found that it was not a result of a hate crime, having been tied sometime during the October 2019 race weekend.

NASCAR investigated all 1,684 garage stalls across all of its’ venues and found just 11 ropes tied in knots. However, only that one garage stall, at Talladega, was tied in a noose. The sanctioning body did not find who tied the noose but has required sensitivity training across the industry.

The incident did lead to a show of unity as the entire garage rallied around Wallace pre-race at Talladega. Multiple drivers pushed Wallace's No. 43 to the front of pit road as crews followed behind. Team owner Richard Petty attended the race in a show of support for the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Wallace finished 14th that day.

The next race for Wallace is the Quaker State 400 presented by Walmart at Kentucky Speedway on Saturday, July 11.