Background and career
William Darrell "Bubba" Wallace Jr. (born October 8, 1993) is an American professional stock car racing driver. He competes full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, driving the No. 23 Toyota Camry XSE for 23XI Racing. Wallace was previously a development driver in Toyota's driver development program where he drove part-time for Joe Gibbs Racing in the Xfinity Series and full-time for Kyle Busch Motorsports in the Camping World Truck Series. He then moved over to Ford and their driver development program and competed full-time for Roush Fenway Racing in the Xfinity Series. After competing in select Cup Series races for Richard Petty Motorsports in their famous No. 43 as an injury replacement for Aric Almirola, Wallace became a full-time driver for RPM in the same car when Almirola left the team, which was his first full-time ride in the Cup Series. Wallace has been the only full-time Black American driver in NASCAR's three national series (Cup, Xfinity, and Truck) each year he has competed in them.
Wallace started racing in the Bandolero and Legends car racing series, as well as local late model events, at the age of nine. In 2005, he won 35 of the Bandolero Series' 48 races held that year; in 2008, he became the youngest driver to win at Franklin County Speedway in Virginia.
In 2010, Wallace began competing in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East, a regional and developmental series. Wallace drove for Rev Racing as part of NASCAR's Drive for Diversity program, and was signed as a development driver for Joe Gibbs Racing. He won his very first race in the series, at Greenville-Pickens Speedway, becoming the youngest driver ever to win at the track, he was also the youngest driver to win in the series history, which began as the Busch North Series in 1987. He also won later in the year at Lee USA Speedway in New Hampshire, on his way to finishing third in series points and winning the series' Rookie of the Year award. He was the first African American to win the Rookie of the Year award in a NASCAR series. Wallace's 2011 season would see him winning three times, at Richmond International Raceway, Columbus Motor Speedway, and Dover International Speedway, and he finished second in points to Max Gresham. Wallace moved to race directly for Joe Gibbs Racing for the 2012 season. Racing the entire K&N East Series season along with four to six selected races in the Nationwide Series, Wallace won the second East event of the year at Greenville-Pickens Speedway, his first win with JGR. In 2018, Wallace returned to K&N East at Watkins Glen driving the No. 27 Chevrolet for Jefferson Pitts Racing to provide him with extra road course seat time before the Cup Series race later that weekend.
Wallace made his national series debut in the Xfinity Series in late May, driving the No. 20 Dollar General Toyota for JGR at Iowa Speedway; he ran in the Top 10 for most of the event, finishing 9th. After posting further Top 10 finishes in his next two starts in the series, Wallace won his first career Nationwide Series pole at Dover International Speedway in late September.
In 2014, he returned to the Nationwide Series for Joe Gibbs Racing in the No. 20, starting in May at Talladega Superspeedway where he would finish 34th after being involved in The Big One while running 13th. He ran only one more Nationwide race that year, at Daytona in July with Coca-Cola's "Share a Coke" campaign sponsoring where he would finish a strong 7th.
Following the 2014 season, it was expected that Wallace would move up to the Xfinity Series with Joe Gibbs Racing in a full-time ride, with the owner Joe Gibbs claiming they would have "a big program" for the young driver. After the team struggled to find sponsorship for more than 15 races, on December 8, 2014, Wallace announced he had been granted his request to leave JGR and seek other opportunities. Later, it was reported he had signed a deal to compete in the Xfinity Series for Roush Fenway Racing for 2015 with Chad Norris as his crew chief. On December 18, 2014, RFR officially announced that they had signed Wallace to compete full-time in the No. 6 Ford Mustang in 2015, with sponsors and crew members to be announced at a later date. On January 28, 2015, at NASCAR Media Day, it was announced that Wallace would drive the No. 6 Ford EcoBoost Mustang. Wallace started the season with a 12th-place finish at Daytona and earned fourteen Top 10's to finish 7th in the final point standings. He was beaten by Daniel Suárez for Rookie of the Year by a single Top 10 finish.
