Bubba Wallace becomes first Black
driver to win a major race on Indianapolis' oval
[July 28, 2025]
By MICHAEL MAROT
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Bubba Wallace climbed out of the No. 23 car
Sunday, 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 Wallace overcame a tenuous 18-minute rain delay, two
tantalizing overtimes, fears about running out of fuel late and the
hard-charging defending race champ, Kyle Larson, on back-to-back
restarts to become the first Black driver to win a major race on
Indianapolis Motor Speedway's 2.5-mile oval. No Black driver has won
the Indianapolis 500, and Formula 1 raced on the track’s road
course.
“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 NASCAR Cup victory delivered Wallace's first
victory in the series' four crown jewel events, the others being the
Daytona 500, Coca-Cola 600 and Southern 500. It also snapped a
100-race winless streak that dated to 2022 at Kansas and locked up a
playoff spot. His only other win came at Talladega in 2021.
The final gap was 0.222 seconds, but that was no measure of the
consternation he faced.
Larson cut a 5.057-second deficit 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.
“The whole time I'm thinking 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 force 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
Larson 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 claim the No. 1 starting spot with one of
the last runs in the session.
On Sunday, he made sure there was no repeat, providing an added
boost to the 23XI Racing team co-owned by basketball Hall of Famer
Michael Jordan and last week’s race winner, Denny Hamlin, as it
continues to battle NASCAR in court over its charter status.
“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.”
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Bubba Wallace kisses the "Yard of Bricks" after winning a NASCAR Cup
Series auto race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Sunday, July 27,
2025, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)
The other big race — the In-Season Challenge — went
to Ty Gibbs, who had a better car than Ty Dillon in qualifying and
on race day. Gibbs finished 21st o win the inaugural March
Madness-like single-elimination tournament and collect the $1
million prize.
Dillon, a surprise championship round entrant after
making the field as the 32nd and final driver, finished 28th.
“They brought me money guns and they jammed so I decided to take all
the money and throwing 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.”
Tire troubles
At different points, Austin Cindric and three-time Cup 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 Turns 3 and 4, sending
him hard into the outside wall on Lap 91.
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 Chastain’s car spinning into the third turn
wall and caused heavy damage.
The others who were out before Lap 100 were Austin Dillon, Ricky
Stenhouse Jr. and Cody Ware.
Weathering the storm
Series officials were concerned enough about the threat of rain that
they moved up the start time by 10 minutes. Fifteen minutes probably
would have eliminated the rain delay.
But the threat of rain impacted the race long before the delay.
Early in the second stage, some teams informed drivers rain was
expected near the midway point and it seemed to increase the
aggressiveness earlier in the race than expected.
Monster advice
Cookie Monster made it to the track Sunday, too. The beloved Sesame
Street character, who served as the Brickyard’s grand marshal,
attended driver introductions and took a handful of questions before
the race and even offered some advice to the drivers.
“Don’t stop and ask for directions,” the furry blue character said.
Up next
Cup drivers will continue their brief Midwestern tour next Sunday
when they race at Iowa.
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