Bubba Wallace turned down a contract extension that would have given him an ownership stake in Richard Petty Motorsports before joining Michael Jordan’s 23XI Racing from the 2021 season. Wallace, 31, completed three full NASCAR Cup seasons at Richard Petty Motorsports before joining the NBA legend Jordan’s new team, which was co-owned by Denny Hamlin.

Richard Petty Motorsports had hopes of retaining the then-26-year-old NASCAR star, and at one point, were confident Wallace would remain with the team beyond the 2020 season. Wallace was SportsPro’s 2018 list of the world’s 50 most marketable athletes and a trailblazer in NASCAR as an African-American driver.

Richard Petty Motorsports even offered Wallace an ownership stake in the team to keep their racing and marketing powerhouse. However, it wasn’t enough to deter Wallace from joining Jordan’s 23XI, where he has won three Cup races, including the recent Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis, which NASCAR legend Petty refused to congratulate his former driver on.

“We’re in discussions with him about an extension that includes ownership in the team,” Andrew Murstein, an owner of Nascar outfit Richard Petty Motorsports at the time, told Forbes. “There’s a plethora of drivers. There is only one Bubba.”

Wallace remained grateful to his former team for giving him his first Cup opportunity. He debuted in the Cup Series in 2017.

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“This was not an easy decision as I have nothing but the utmost respect for Richard Petty and his family, but I believe it’s time for someone else to take over the reins of the No. 43,” Wallace said in a statement.

“Thank you to the King and everyone at Richard Petty Motorsports for giving me the opportunity to start my Cup Series career. I’ve grown so much as a driver and as a person since joining them. We’ve got nine more races together, and I hope we can finish the 2020 season on a high note.”

Wallace, now in his 30s, a father, and a three-time NASCAR Cup Series race winner, will compete in this year’s playoffs. His win in Indy booked his place in the postseason after missing last year’s playoffs following a winless 2024.

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Before the Brickyard 400, Wallace’s last NASCAR win came in Kansas in 2022. “Oh, my gosh, I’m just so proud of this team,” Wallace said after taking the chequered flag following double overtime. “That adrenaline rush is crazy, ’cause I’m coming off that right now — and I’m worn out.”

“It’s unbelievable,” he added. “To win here at the Brickyard, knowing how big this race is, knowing all the noise that’s going on in the background, to set that all aside is a testament to these people here on this 23 team. It’s been getting old right around the cut line (for the playoffs).”

Bubba Wallace.

No name in the NASCAR Cup Series, at least over the past five-plus years, evokes reactions from the average NASCAR fan quite like this one does, when the two words are merely spoken.

Wallace has emerged as one of NASCAR’s most polarizing characters, specifically during his time at 23XI Racing. The team co-owned by three-time Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin and NBA legend Michael Jordan, which formed in 2021 as a result of an online rumor, made Wallace their first-ever driver, signing him away from Richard Petty Motorsports.

At that time, Wallace had already emerged as one of NASCAR’s most hated figures. He was the low-hanging fruit when it came to fans’ inevitable quips of “he’s only here because…” – you know the rest of the line.

So when Jordan came right out and said “we don’t sign checks for losers”, it elicited further reactions from the fans already hell-bent on rooting for the No. 23 Toyota to end up in the wall on any given race weekend.

But if not for what happened in June 2020, less than a year after that very driver ironically received an ovation from the crowd for spinning out Kyle Busch at Watkins Glen, it might not have been that way.

NASCAR fans’ Bubba Wallace hate based on a lie

Every single driver in the Cup field is, for one reason or another, hated by some fans. That’s the nature of the beast. No driver is going to be loved by everybody, no matter what. This isn’t any sort of a groundbreaking concept that’s exclusive to NASCAR.

The problem with an overwhelming majority of the Wallace hate, even more than five years later, is that it’s based on a lie. It’s based on a misconception that NASCAR willingly promoted (and the mainstream media willingly sensationalized), all under the guide of “standing behind” Wallace amid an act of racism that never existed.

The saga, which some still call “The Great Noose Hoax”, “Fake Noose”, you name it, was started on a Sunday night at Talladega Superspeedway: June 21, 2020. The race had been rained out to Monday.

That evening, NASCAR put out a statement, first sending into the media, and then releasing it publicly.

“Late this afternoon, NASCAR was made aware that a noose was found in the garage stall of the 43 team. We are angry and outraged, and cannot state strongly enough how seriously we take this heinous act. We have launched an immediate investigation, and will do everything we can to identify the person(s) responsible and eliminate them from the sport. As we have stated unequivocally, there is no place for racism in NASCAR, and this act only strengthens our resolve to make the sport open and welcoming to all.”

Most NASCAR fans can agree on one thing: this boils our blood to read. But not all in the same way, and that’s where the major disconnect is happening. It’s why Wallace is still on the receiving end of so much completely unwarranted hate.

At face value, the statement is angering because of what supposedly went down. But as more and more time passed without any hard evidence or additional information regarding the so-called crime, suspicions began to arise. Fans began to wonder if the situation was really what NASCAR said it was, in no uncertain terms.

But any such suspicions were shot down, primarily by the ever-divisive media. No; a crime happened here. You better believe it. And if you don’t, you’re a racist hack who has no place in this sport.

Ahh, of course. So goes the party line, right?

NASCAR flat-out made an accusation. In what was one of the most racially charged environments in recent history back in the summer of 2020, they stirred the pot without doing any due diligence. They knew exactly what would come of their accusation, and with no evidence whatsoever, they did it anyway.

That is what should boil your blood reading that statement now. And that, in and of itself, has absolutely nothing to do with Bubba Wallace.

FBI confirms no crime committed

As pretty much everybody other than NASCAR and the media expected, no crime was committed. The “noose” was a garage pull rope that had been in that stall for who knows how long, at least since the previous year’s October race at the track.

NASCAR made a knee-jerk reaction to one individual’s misunderstanding, and instead of simply looking into it (we’re not saying they shouldn’t have) and confirming the obvious, they turned it into a national story.

Over nothing.

What amazes me, to this day, is how, after the FBI sent those 15 agents to Talladega (and wasted everyone’s time in doing so), it took no time at all for Fox Sports’ Bob Pockrass to resurface a picture from the October race at the track, with the exact same pull rope, back when the garage stall belonged to Paul Menard and his No. 21 team.

I’m still grateful for Pockrass’ transparency here. Because there is no way on earth I believe that absolutely nobody thought of doing this between the time the so-called “noose” was discovered, up until the time NASCAR got through wasting those 15 agents’ time. Absolutely no way.

I firmly believe NASCAR wanted the publicity, and that they, plus a chunk of the media, wanted to believe an act of racism was committed. They wanted the clicks and the media engagement and the national praise, especially at a time when accusations of racism were already rampant across the country.

They wanted the “NASCAR” to stand not for National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, but for National Association for Stock Car Anti-Racism. They wanted to virtue signal, to pat themselves on the back.

Facts never mattered.

Seeing as how NASCAR was more than happy to soak up the national spotlight after banning the Confederate Flag from race tracks less than two weeks prior, you have to believe they were loving the added publicity, which once again quickly elevated to the national scale. It was a “Look at how not racist we are again!” play if ever we’ve seen one.

Yea, no kidding. Because no racist act was committed. Just conveniently leave that part out, though, and dismiss anyone who dare suggest it possible that this was all a big nothingburger.

I recall, shortly after the whole thing unfolded, bringing it up to a close friend. He didn’t even want to talk about it, and it was obvious that it wasn’t because he hated Bubba, but because of the fact that this was the single most mismanaged off-track situation NASCAR has seen in recent history.

There were several members of the media who took to social media to not only dismiss, but to berate, attack, insult, and completely vilify anybody who dared suggest this wasn’t a hate crime. There were others who didn’t go that far, but still fully fed into the narrative that week, arms raised high to battle an evil that never existed.

Never mind the fact that the whole narrative was made next-to-impossible by the COVID-limited access to the garage to begin with. But again, if you dared bring that up, you risked losing your job or, again, being vilified on social media. Because clearly somebody had to be the villain here. Clearly there was a racist on the loose. Someone had to pay.

Do you really believe it’s not exactly what NASCAR wanted?

Unfortunately, all along, it was the very individual they supposedly sought to defend who paid the biggest price. Because NASCAR and the sensationalist, always-divisive media turned Bubba Wallace the victim, a role he never wanted nor embraced.

I have to admit that, yes, in hindsight Wallace going on various talk shows that week to talk about the “noose” (and, like NASCAR, criticize fans who doubted the party line) was not a good look.

But you have to understand something. He was told what everyone else was. NASCAR’s statement that night did not include the word “alleged”. They stated, plain and simple, again in no uncertain terms, that a “heinous act” had been committed, despite having absolutely nothing to back up that particular claim.

Of course, they referenced Wallace’s skin color in the release, and spoke about “racial injustice”. Again, there’s no way I don’t believe they didn’t know exactly what they were doing.

Wallace was merely reacting to what he was told as indisputable fact. Nothing he was doing involved embellishment of anything. Again, he didn’t even see the “noose”.

I’m not saying Wallace – as a person or as a driver – is innocent. He has had his polarizing moments in situations other than NASCAR’s so-called “heinous act”, both on and off the race track. Who hasn’t?

But when the first thing he’s associated with is the “noose”, you have to wonder just how much hate he’d get if fans actually stopped to consider how that all went down, and the fact that he was no different than you or me when it came to watching how that situation unfolded.

And what most outlets won’t tell you is that while Wallace did speak out about the so-called “heinous act” from the time it was “confirmed” by NASCAR to the time the FBI actually confirmed the opposite, he later admitted that the whole thing “kind of looks bad”.

He’s a realist; we all know that. We see him wear his emotions on his sleeve every week. He knew how it was perceived. He knew that those criticized and vilified for their suspicions were actually right. And he knew how it all made him look, even if he had personally done nothing wrong.

Yet all NASCAR did, and all the media did, was inexplicably double down, treating the vast majority of the fanbase with a condescending level of tone deafness that implied they saw them as nothing more than oblivious and ready to stand shoulder to shoulder in a battle against something that never happened to begin with.

Instead of being grateful beyond words – like anybody should have been – that no racist act was committed against NASCAR’s lone African American driver, that’s the reaction we got.

If there was ever an example of the infamous “Believe in something, even if it didn’t happen” meme, this was it. This was the epitome. This was the poster child.

NASCAR could have handled it a lot better. Instead, they sold Bubba down the river, all under the guise of “standing behind him”, without acknowledging any sort of accountability for a mistake, misjudgment, and overreaction of gargantuan proportions.

More than a year later, Jimmie Johnson spoke out about NASCAR’s sensationalism, stating that all NASCAR needed to do was include the word “alleged”, and things would have been different.

It really would have been that simple. As we all know, they didn’t.

And guess what? Credit where credit is due: NASCAR president Steve Phelps ended up admitting the same thing as well. NASCAR knew they messed up, and they finally admitted it.

But unfortunately, the damage was done. “Alleged” would have implied the possibility that something didn’t happen, and even though that’s what was true, NASCAR didn’t want to leave the door open to that.

I feel as strongly about the whole thing as anybody. But none of that is Bubba’s fault. This is, and always was, the farthest thing from a Jussie Smollett situation.

I just hope more fans can come to terms with that, five-plus years later, and that the justified frustration with NASCAR and the media doesn’t continue to translate to unjustified hate toward Bubba.

I’m not saying you should suddenly root for him. I’m not saying his Brickyard 400 win – another interesting irony shared with Paul Menard, for whatever that’s worth – makes him the greatest driver ever.

What I am saying is that the facts and the reality of why Wallace is so hated don’t match up with the facts and the reality of what actually happened back in June 2020.

After sweeping the weekend at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course just a few weeks ago, Cooper Shipman carried momentum into the New Jersey Lottery SpeedTour weekend to win the opening race for Formula 4 United States Championship on Saturday afternoon. In a race with intense competition and attrition, Shipman (No. 14 Kiwi Motorsport Ligier JS F422) kept his focus forward to minimize his mistakes and capitalize on the misfortune of others. Turn 2 was a gremlin for several competitors throughout the race, with both Demitri Nolan (No. 5 Crosslink Motorsports Ligier JS F422) and Alex Popow (No. 55 Dr. Michael Thompson MS DDS PPLS / MLT Motorsports Ligier JS F422) eliminated from competition after contact with the tire barrier. 

Kekai Hauanio (No. 29 N-E-Where Transport / Crosslink Motorsports Ligier JS F422) paced the field for most of the race, but a late-race restart changed everything, as Clemente Huerta Raab (No. 17 Velox USA / Kiwi Motorsport Ligier JS F422) pulled tight on his bumper and dove to the inside entering Turn 1. Hauanio dropped two wheels, giving the advantage to Caleb Campbell (No. 68 Kids Help Phone / Camtacc Properties / Legacy Foundation of Canada / LC Racing Ligier JS F422), who had darted forward from third. As Huerta Raab dropped all four wheels off the racing surface, Shipman slid into the runner-up position to take chase of Campbell. For the next three laps, Campbell and Shipman raced wheel to wheel, until finally, with just over four minutes left on the clock, Shipman drove deep into Turn 1 to complete the pass. When the checkered flag waved, Shipman led, with Campbell in second and Hauanio in third. 

Following the event, the stewards issued Campbell a penalty for causing a collision. The drive-thru penalty was converted into a 30-second time penalty, which dropped Campbell to fourth in the final results and promoted Huerta Raab to the third and final podium position. 

Notes of Interest: 

• Cooper Shipman earned his third-career F4 U.S. win during the opening race at New Jersey Motorsports Park to extend his lead in the points championship. 
• After finishing second in all three Ligier Junior Formula Championship races at NJMP last season, Kekai Hauanio finished second in F4 U.S.’s Race 1 to mark his seventh podium of the season. 
• Clemente Huerta Raab earned his third podium of 2025 with a third-place finish in Round 9. 

> SEE MORE: Race 1 Official Results

“It was a pretty crazy race out there,” said Shipman. “I thought we gave it away there in the beginning, but I just kept my head down and waited to capitalize from the mistakes. Thanks to the Kiwi Motorsport team for giving me a great car—one that allowed us to come through from the back. I’m super excited to win today and super proud of our effort.”

> WATCH THE STREAM: Stream Round 9 from NJMP

F4 U.S. returns to the track tomorrow morning at 10:25 a.m. ET for Race 2 from the New Jersey Lottery SpeedTour. The race will be live streamed on SpeedTour.TV.

BRISTOL, Tenn. — It was a red flag for Major League Baseball at Bristol Motor Speedway on Saturday night.

The Speedway Classic between the Atlanta Braves and Cincinnati Reds was suspended in the first inning because of rain, soaking a record-breaking crowd for the first regular-season game in Tennessee. The plan is to resume the game on Sunday at 1 p.m. ET.

The first delay at the historic bullring of a racetrack came after the ceremonial first pitch featuring a pair of Hall of Famers in Johnny Bench and Chipper Jones, joined by NASCAR drivers Kyle Busch and Chase Elliott. The second with one out in the bottom of the first led to the game being pushed back a day.

Fans who stuck out the first delay of 2 hours, 17 minutes started heading toward the exits before the game was postponed with the Reds holding a 1-0 lead.

It was an unwelcome detour for the long-planned event mixing baseball and NASCAR.

“We’re going to suspend tonight’s game. … We are optimistic for a better weather forecast for tomorrow,” Michael Hill, MLB’s senior vice president of on-field operations, told Fox.

The rain made life difficult on the players before the suspension. A bat flew out of TJ Friedl’s hands as he led off for the Reds. A pitcher seemed to catch his footing going to cover first base.

The Speedway Classic was announced nearly a year ago as part of commissioner Rob Manfred’s push to take MLB to places where baseball isn’t played every day live. MLB played a game at the “Field of Dreams” movie site in Iowa in 2021 and 2022. Games have been held in Alabama and North Carolina too.

Reds pitcher Andrew Abbott showed up Saturday afternoon at Bristol wearing a cutoff version of a NASCAR race suit. Born in Lynchburg, Virginia, Abbott said he wanted something to wear in for a special game.

“I grew up around NASCAR,” Abbott said. “Just went on eBay and found a couple options, and luckily that was the one that arrived in time. I had a couple of backups. I know who Rusty Wallace is too, so I actually do know the backstory behind it.”

Long before the fans departed in the rain, they were entertained by a 110-foot Ferris wheel along with food trucks, live music, pitching tunnels and batting cages. Fans also had a chance for photos with the Commissioner’s Trophy and Clydesdales outside the historic racetrack.

Inside, star Tim McGraw performed and was joined by Pitbull.

Before the weather moved over the area, players stood in the back of pickup trucks with their numbers emblazoned on the side and rode around the half-mile racetrack. Some used their phones to document the moment. For introductions, the Braves and Reds walked between a pair of cars decked out in Atlanta and Cincinnati colors.

Then the tarp came out as rain that had been falling around Bristol much of Saturday turned heavy and delayed the start.

The first delay led to the Braves switching starting pitchers. Spencer Strider, who grew up in nearby Knoxville, got a bigger ovation than Reds starter Chase Burns, who is from Hendersonville and played at the University of Tennessee. The Reds stuck with Burns despite the delay.

Strider warmed up. The Braves chose not to risk his third start in this situation coming off a second elbow surgery and turned to Austin Cox.

The rain stopped long enough to take off the tarp and start the game.

Michael Waltrip, who raced plenty at Bristol, restarted the festivities by quoting his brother Darrell: “Boogity, boogity, boogity. Let’s play baseball, boys!”

Atlanta went down in order in the top of the first inning. But there was another rain delay after Austin Hays hit an RBI single for Cincinnati in the bottom half.

MLB didn’t try to sell every ticket inside the speedway that drew 156,990 for the Battle of Bristol college football game in 2016. The track with a racing capacity of 146,000 could host 90,000 or more even with sections blocked off.

Officials announced Monday that more than 85,000 tickets had been sold, topping the previous paid attendance of 84,587 set Sept. 12, 1954, when Cleveland Stadium hosted the New York Yankees.

A batter has to clear 400 feet to hit anything out of center field, 375 in the alleys and 330 down each baseline. Pulling a ball down the line raises the prospect of a ball bouncing off the racetrack beyond the outfield wall.

“Honestly, my first thought: I can’t believe they did all this for one game,” Braves first baseman Matt Olson said of his first visit to Bristol. “To be able to set all this up, get a playing surface ready, set the stands up in order to have the proper viewing, it’s pretty incredible.”

United Kingdom’s Lando Norris holds off McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri of Australia to win Hungarian Grand Prix.

Lando Norris has held off McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri to win the Hungarian Grand Prix on a one-stop strategy and slash the Australian’s Formula One lead to nine points going into the August break.

Norris completed 39 of the 70 laps on Sunday at the Hungaroring on a single set of hard tyres while Piastri stopped twice and closed a 12-second gap to just 0.6 at the finish with a nail-biting chase to the chequered flag and a near-collision.

George Russell took a distant third, 20 seconds down the road, for Mercedes and his fifth podium of the season.

“I’m dead. I’m dead. It was tough,” gasped Norris, who started in third place – with Piastri second – and then went down to fifth after being squeezed at the start.

“We weren’t really planning on the one stop, but after the first lap, it was kind of our only option to get back into things.

“I didn’t think it would get us the win. I thought it would get us maybe into second.”

The win was Norris’s fifth of the season and third in the past four races to Piastri’s six. It was also McLaren’s seventh one-two in 14 races.

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was a frustrated fourth after starting on pole position but losing out with a two-stop strategy and a five-second penalty for erratic driving as Russell challenged.

Fernando Alonso finished fifth for Aston Martin ahead of Sauber’s sixth-placed Brazilian rookie Gabriel Bortoleto.

Lance Stroll was seventh for Aston Martin ahead of Racing Bulls’ Liam Lawson with Red Bull’s reigning champion, Max Verstappen, and Mercedes rookie Kimi Antonelli completing the top 10 scoring positions.

Seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton, an eight-time winner in Hungary, started in 12th place for Ferrari and finished there.

The Briton was lapped by the leaders six laps from the chequered flag.

Before the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series season ended, it was confirmed that Rick Allen would be leaving the Cup Series broadcast booth on NBC (and USA Network) to make way for Leigh Diffey.

Many believed that this move came as a result of IndyCar’s new broadcast deal with Fox. With Diffey having served as the lead announcer for IndyCar races on NBC since 2013, the overarching belief was that NBC didn’t want to risk the popular Australian leaving for Fox to continue calling the open-wheel races.

Will Buxton ended up being named IndyCar’s lead announcer on Fox, with former NBC driver analysts James Hinchcliffe and Townsend Bell transitioning over to Fox to join him.

As a result of NBC’s proactive measure, Allen was replaced by Diffey beginning with the late August race at Daytona International Speedway, though he continued to call Xfinity Series races until the 2024 season concluded.

Rick Allen out at NBC entirely

But Allen, who had served in his lap-by-lap role for Cup Series races on NBC since 2015, had nowhere to go once the 2025 season began, and while retaining Diffey made sense, doing so at the expense of the longtime voice of NASCAR on NBC was an eyebrow-raising move, to say the least.

As a part of NASCAR’s news seven-year, $7.7 billion media rights deal, all Xfinity Series races were moved to the CW Network, and former Fox announcer Adam Alexander had been tabbed the lead announcer for those races.

Additionally, the Amazon Prime Video and TNT Sports broadcast booths for their respective five-race stints were announced as being the exact same, with Alexander leading those broadcasts alongside two of Allen’s former NBC colleagues, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Steve Letarte.

Earnhardt left NBC on his own after 2023 and took the year off in 2024, while Letarte is still set to serve as a driver analyst alongside Diffey and fellow analyst Jeff Burton on NBC. So the three-man booth is set to remain this year what it was from the August Daytona race up through November’s season finale at Phoenix Raceway last year.

Allen recently opened up about how crushing his exit was from NBC, and given the struggles experienced by a number of members of the Fox broadcast team, specifically at the Truck level, earlier this year, several NASCAR fans have called upon the network to make a move to secure his services for 2026.

But nothing has come to fruition yet, and so when NBC’s portion of the schedule begins with the Iowa Corn 350 at Iowa Speedway this Sunday, August 3, it will mark the first time that Allen has not been leading the way following the transition from another network’s portion of the schedule to NBC’s.