{"id":14844,"date":"2018-02-18T21:22:30","date_gmt":"2018-02-19T03:22:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=14844"},"modified":"2018-02-18T21:22:30","modified_gmt":"2018-02-19T03:22:30","slug":"darrell-bubba-wallace-jr-races-to-historical-and-emotional-second-place-finish-in-daytona-500","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2018\/02\/18\/darrell-bubba-wallace-jr-races-to-historical-and-emotional-second-place-finish-in-daytona-500\/","title":{"rendered":"Darrell \u201cBubba\u201d Wallace Jr. races to historical\u00a0and\u00a0emotional second-place finish in Daytona 500"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. \u2013 Not two minutes after Darrell \u201cBubba\u201d Wallace Jr.<\/strong> sat down in the Daytona International Speedway media center to field questions about his historic and dramatic runner-up finish in the Daytona 500<\/a>, his mom Desiree came toward the podium and he stood up to embrace her.<\/p>\n

They hugged, they cried. It was both emotional and heart-warming to watch.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am so proud of you,\u2019\u2019 she told him.<\/p>\n

And through tears of joy, accomplishment and challenges overcome, Wallace finally mustered, \u201cMom, you\u2019re acting like we just won the race.\u2019\u2019 And laughed.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Darrell Wallace Jr., driver of the #43 Click n’ Close Chevrolet, race at the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida. (Photo by Jared C. Tilton\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cWe did,\u2019\u2019 she said, still holding the embrace. \u201cWe did win that race.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

For Wallace, his fans and for the Richard Petty Motorsports team he drives for, Wallace\u2019s runner-up finish to Austin Dillon on NASCAR\u2019s biggest stage was essentially a victory. It was certainly a heckuva way for the rookie to start the season.<\/p>\n

In addition to the points he earned toward the championship, Wallace also earned the distinction of the highest-finishing African American driver in the Daytona 500.<\/p>\n

That historical nod comes on the heels of a phone call from baseball legend Hank Aaron wishing him good luck Sunday morning and a note on Twitter from Lewis Hamilton, a Formula One world champion.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe just said, hey, good luck, and just have a good race today, and that was it,\u2019\u2019 Wallace said of his phone conversation with Aaron. \u201cHe knew that we were pressed for time, and it was five seconds, and that’s all he said.  That was really cool.  So when [Andrew] Murstein came up to me and said, \u2018Hey, Hank Aaron is on the line,\u2019 I’m like, What?  That’s awesome.  So, I was pretty excited about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"

Darrell Wallace Jr.
(Photo by Jerry Markland\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

Wallace\u2019s was equally surprised for the four-time Formula One champion Hamilton to reach out.<\/p>\n

\u201cI look up to him,\u2019\u2019 Wallace said of Hamilton. \u201cHe does so many great things in the F1 world.  He’s just a genuine badass in what he does, so that was cool, and then he sent out a tweet, and I got weak at the knees.  Luckily I was sitting down when I was replying to him.\u201d <\/p>\n

The impact on Wallace\u2019s achievement is significant historically. But it is most important personally, as the 24-year old Alabama native embarks on his first season in NASCAR\u2019s big leagues after an unsettling 2017 season when he had no full-time job and his future was in limbo.<\/p>\n

He made four starts last season for Richard Petty Motorsports, filling in while the team\u2019s then-driver Aric Almirola recovered from injury. With each start, Wallace improved, finishing with a top-10 at Kentucky Speedway before handing the car back to Almirola.<\/p>\n

The Petty team announced it would hire Wallace in October and has been eagerly optimistic about how the young driver would fare. And judging by the response Sunday night driving the No. 43 Click \u2018n Close Chevrolet, this first major Daytona 500 test went well.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a heckuva start,\u2019\u2019 Petty said smiling widely after the race. \u201cWe\u2019ve got a new car, a new driver.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd for the 3 [Dillon] and 43 [Wallace] \u2013 it\u2019s been a long time since we\u2019ve seen the two of them at the top of the board,\u2019\u2019 Petty said, referring to the car\u2019s former drivers, Dale Earnhardt and himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo that\u2019s great. A good start for Chevrolet and a good start for us with them.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood for Childress too because I can tell him we pushed him to it,\u2019\u2019 he said laughing.<\/p>\n

The success of Wallace\u2019s full-time debut wasn\u2019t lost on his team either.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe kid hasn\u2019t stopped amazing me yet,\u2019\u2019 crew chief Drew Blickensderfer said after the race. \u201cThis is the fifth race with him and five times I\u2019ve come out saying, \u2018Oh my gosh, we can do this.\u2019 And that energizes this company, the whole team.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re less people and less everything than we\u2019ve ever been just working harder than we\u2019ve ever been to try to get to the front. We feel like a cohesive group now and he\u2019s an integral part of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got points from the Duel, we got stage points today, finished second. We\u2019ve got more stage points today then we did all of last year and had them all in one weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe needed that as a company to sell some sponsorship and it won\u2019t do anything but help our confidence and the rookie\u2019s.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

It all proved to be exactly the kind of start the team needed and the kind of Daytona 500 that Wallace had always dreamed of.<\/p>\n

He made the most of the hard-fought opportunity. And this is just the beginning.<\/p>\n

As Wallace shared moments about his time first seeing Petty after the race, his eyes teared up again and then broke into a big grin \u2013 the look of accomplishment in his eyes, a sense of pride in his voice.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust a great day, a great week, seeing him after the Duels, how pumped up he was and just the same amount of emotion, if not more right here after the race,\u2019\u2019 Wallace said.<\/p>\n

And he conceded, \u201cJust an incredible moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be in that position, it takes me back to a week ago when Dale [Earnhardt Jr.] called me \u2011\u2011 as soon as I landed here, he says, \u2018Hey, the next three or four weeks are going to be busy for you,\u2019 and I’m like, yeah, no kidding, just come off a stressful night. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd he just had the words to bring that positive light back up that I try to carry with me every day, and he says, \u2018[I’ll] have the opportunity to do things outside of this sport that not really anybody else can. So take that, run with it, and set yourself up for 10 years from now, look back on it and see how you did.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

So far, so good.<\/p>\n

Darrell Wallace Jr. Interview – <\/h3>\nhttp:\/\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/DIS_MENCS_WALLACE_021818.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. \u2013 Not two minutes after Darrell \u201cBubba\u201d Wallace Jr. sat down in the Daytona International Speedway media center to field questions about his historic and dramatic runner-up finish in the Daytona 500, his mom Desiree came toward the podium and he stood up to embrace her. They […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14846,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[473,42,287,16],"class_list":["post-14844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-darrell-wallace-jr","tag-daytona-500","tag-daytona-international-speedway","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Daytona500-MediaDay-WallaceJr-021418.jpg?fit=4980%2C3228&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-3Rq","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14844"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14844\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14857,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14844\/revisions\/14857"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}