INDIANAPOLIS — Bubba Wallace climbed out of the No. 23 Chevolet, pumped his fists, found his family and savored every precious moment of a historic Brickyard 400 victory.
He deserved every minute of it.
The 31-year-old NASCAR Cup Series driver for 23XI Racing overcame a tenuous 18-minute rain delay, two tantalizing overtimes, fears about running out of fuel late and the hard-charging Kyle Larson — the winner of the 2024 race — on back-to-back restarts Sunday to become the first Black driver to win a major race on Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s 2.5-mile oval. There has never been a Black winner of the open-wheel Indianapolis 500, which dates to 1911, and Formula 1 used the road course at IMS when the international open-wheel series held its U.S. Grand Prix there from 2000 to 2007.
The Cup Series raced on the IMS oval from 1994 to 2020, switched to the road course for the next three years, then returned to the oval a year ago, when Larson drove the Hendrick Motorsports No. 5 Chevy to victory lane as Wallace finished fifth. Until Sunday, the best Brickyard 400 result for Wallace was fifth place in 2019, when he was at the wheel of the Richard Petty Motorsports No. 43 Chevy.
“This one’s really cool,” Wallace said. “Coming off Turn 4, I knew I was going to get there — unless we ran out of gas. I was surprised I wasn’t crying like a little baby.”
His third career Cup Series victory was his first in of stock-car racing’s four crown jewel events, with the others the Coca-Cola 600, the Daytona 500 and the Southern 500. It also snapped a 100-race winless streak that dated to his September 2022 victory at Kansas Speedway and locked up a spot in the 16-driver field for the postseason, which begins next month. His only other win came in October 2021 at Alabama’s Talladega Superspeedway, a playoff race that was postponed and shortened due to rain.
The final gap Sunday was less than a a quarter-second (0.222), but even that was no measure of the consternation he faced.
Larson cut a deficit of 5.057 seconds with 14 laps to go to about three seconds with six laps left as the yellow flag came out for the rain. The cars then rolled to a stop on pit lane with four laps remaining, forcing Wallace to think and rethink his restart strategy.
“‘Are we going? Are we not?'” he said. “I will say I leaned more towards ‘I know we’re going to go back racing. Be ready. Don’t get complacent here.'”
Wallace made sure of it. He beat Larson through the second turn on the first restart only to have a crash behind him trigger a second overtime, forcing his crew to recalculate whether they had enough fuel to finish the race or whether he needed to surrender the lead and refuel.
In Wallace’s mind, there was no choice.
“The first thing that went through my mind was, ‘Here we go again,'” he said. “But then I said, ‘I want to win this straight up. I want to go back racing.’ Here we are.”
He beat Larson off the restart again and pulled away, preventing the 2021 Cup Series champion from becoming the race’s fourth back-to-back winner.
The victory also alleviated the frustration Wallace felt Saturday, when he spent most of the qualifying session on the provisional pole only to see Chase Briscoe earn the No. 1 starting spot with one of the last runs in the session.
On Sunday, he made sure there was no repeat.
“Those last 20 laps there were ups and downs, and I was telling myself, ‘You won’t be able to do it,'” Wallace said. “Once I’d seen it was Larson, I knew he won here last year, and he’s arguably the best in the field. So to beat the best, we had to be the best today.”
The other big contest — the final showdown of the In-Season Challenge — went to Ty Gibbs, who had a better car than fellow finalist Ty Dillon in qualifying and on race day. Gibbs finished 21st in his Joe Gibbs Racing No. 54 Toyota to win the inaugural single-elimination, in-season tournament and collect the $1 million prize.
Dillon, a surprise qualifier for the championship round after making the field as the 32nd and final driver, finished 28th on the track Sunday in the Kaulig Racing No. 10 Chevy.
“They brought me money guns and they jammed, so I decided to take all the money and throw it to the fans, and they were all wrestling and fighting over it,” said Gibbs, who also received a title belt and a ring. “But it’s super cool. It’s a cool opportunity.”
Wallace and Larson were followed by JGR’s Denny Hamlin — who also co-owns 23XI Racing — the winner a week earlier at Delaware’s Motor Speedway for his fourth victory of the season and the 58th of his Cup Series career. Ryan Preece had the best finish for a Ford driver in fourth, and he was followed by RFK Racing teammate Brad Keselowski, who is also a co-owner of the team.
At different points, Penske teammates Austin Cindric and three-time Cup Series champion Joey Logano appeared to be in control of the race, but tire problems took them out of contention. Eric Jones also was knocked out of the race when his right front tire came off between the third and fourth turns, sending him hard into the outside wall on the 91st lap.
They weren’t the only drivers who made early exits.
Ross Chastain was the first out after just 18 laps when a tap from Michael McDowell sent his car spinning into the third turn wall and caused heavy damage. The others who were out before the 100th lap were Austin Dillon, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Cody Ware.
IndyCar: Palou closes in on another title
Alex Palou won IndyCar’s Grand Prix of Monterey on Sunday at California’s WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, the Chip Ganassi Racing star’s eighth victory through 14 races this season on the American open-wheel circuit.
Palou, a 28-year-old Spaniard seeking his fourth IndyCar title in five seasons, is almost there. With three races to go, he has a 121-point lead over second-place Pato O’Ward of Arrow McLaren, who had won the previous two races but wound up fourth Sunday.
Arrow McLaren’s Christian Lundgaard was second to Palou on the track Sunday, with Andretti Global’s Colton Herta third.
Palou led all but 11 laps to repeat as the Monterey winner, and he has a chance to break IndyCar’s record for single-season wins if he can sweep the remainder of the schedule, with the final three races Aug. 10 in Portland, Oregon, Aug. 24 in Milwaukee and Aug. 31 in Nashville.
