Chase Elliott congratulates Bubba Wallace on his victory(Photo: Getty Images)
Invariably, a trip to the Talladega Super Speedway by the three top series in NASCAR leads to all sorts of chatter before, during and after each racing weekend. Drivers, teams, fans, and media often weigh in with their likes and dislikes of the giant track and the type of racing that goes on there. Pack racing, tight competition, close finishes, and the constantly looming threat of the ‘Big One’ are all topics of conversation in regard to the Alabama facility.
Not only did this past weekend provide all of that, but at the same time, history making elements of the weekend that will lead to publicity for the sport were a part of the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, NASCAR Xfinity Series and NASCAR Cup Series races held over those three days.
The first and most obvious happening that will stir conversation was the win by Bubba Wallace in the rain-delayed, and eventually rain-shortened, YellaWood 500 race for Cup Series competitors. The driver of the Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin co-owned 23XI Racing Toyota became the first African-American to win in NASCAR’s top series since Wendell Scott was victorious on December 1, 1963 at the Jacksonville(FL) Speedway Park.
Needless to say, a win by a black driver will be one that will long be talked about by those who follow and participate in NASCAR. Some of that talk will be positive and some will be negative. But as the old saying goes, “All press is good press”. As a result of Monday’s finish, the sport will be a hotly discussed topic over the next several days by sports shows on television and radio, it will be written about in newspapers and websites, and featured on podcasts.
So where will all of that press lead?
Of course, there will be some who will claim they will never watch NASCAR again. Several of these “fans” have made this claim numerous other times on social media or otherwise yet they always seem to know what is happening within the sport despite the “fact” that they don’t keep up with it anymore. A few may go so far as to state the obvious and admit why they “will never watch again” while others will make some sort of accusation that the race was fixed or something else they may want to conjure up instead of telling the truth.
On the positive side, there will be people talking about NASCAR who have rarely or never talked about it before. Involvement by outsiders such as basketball legend Michael Jordan with 23XI Racing and rapper ‘Pitbull’ with Trackhouse Racing may have heightened the interest level of non-racing fans earlier this year but the proof that a black driver can win while driving for one of those high profile owners may draw those folks even closer to the sport.
If some can’t get past the race issue, that’s too bad. It would seem that we should be beyond that kind of stuff in our society by now but we’re clearly not.
From a racing standpoint, the fact that a team only formed during the last year has won a race is huge. Yes, this team is closely aligned with Joe Gibbs Racing, but still, for a single-car team to win in its first season is noteworthy. And considering that the team has already stated its intention to expand in 2022 by adding former Cup Series champion Kurt Busch shows the seriousness of 23XI.
But the weekend of firsts was not limited to the Cup Series at Talladega. This was the first weekend in NASCAR history in which there were three first-time winners in the sport’s top-three divisions at the same track.
Tate Fogleman literally slid across the finish line to score his first NASCAR Camping World Series win on Saturday. The 21-year-old driver spun John Hunter Nemechek on the way to the checkered flag in the Chevy Silverado 250 to grab his first trophy then crashed himself and had to be taken away by ambulance for a checkup before going to victory lane. A first-time winner in such a highlight-producing way is never bad for the sport.
That race was followed by one of the best feel-good stories of the season when a family-owned team won its first NASCAR Xfinity Series race in the Sparks 300. Brandon Brown and his crew had been so much in need of backing that the 28-year-old racer earlier this year had filmed a spoof commercial appearing as a car dealer trying to lure customers to his dealership. Once again, this is the type of story that no one is opposed to hearing about and seeing.
Brown even went so far as to capitalize on an obscene chant made by fans during his interview by making t-shirts commemorating the moment.
Each of these stories would have made headlines all by itself. The fact that NASCAR got all three in the same weekend is more than a little remarkable. If NASCAR was looking for press, it is certainly getting it out of this past weekend at Talladega. Time will tell in the form of ticket sales and television viewership whether the sport benefitted.
Richard Allen is a member of the National Motorsports Press Association
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