He is the man through whom the revolution came. Bubba Wallace, whose real name is Darrell, has managed to find a place in Nascar, this superpowered racing car championship very popular in the south of the United States, where the legacy of racial segregation is in places very much alive.
The advent of this 26-year-old Métis, born in Mobile, Alabama, to a black mother and a white father, may well have changed the face of these highly prized stock car competitions forever, but whose audiences TV tended to go down.
“He brought his freshness and his difference”
Like Tiger Woods in golf and Lewis Hamilton in Formula 1, Bubba Wallace gave a boost to an aging discipline in front of which a certain Donald Trump enjoys. Followed by thousands of fans, the young pilot is also not fooled by the role that NASCAR intends to make him play as well as to a whole young generation which pushed the old guard to early retirement: “She (Editor’s note: Nascar) try to introduce a new face and a new demography, ”admits Wallace.
“It brought its freshness and its difference, analyzes Philippe Chéreau, the voice of NASCAR in France on the Automoto chain. I remember a day when, after a delayed start, he played American football with the spectators. But nothing predestined Bubba, who benefited in his adolescence from the integration program “Drive for diversity” (“Drive for diversity”) launched by NASCAR to become the standard bearer of the Black Live Matters movement (The life of Blacks account) born in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, asphyxiated by the knee of a policeman on his neck for more than 8 minutes.
He bans the Confederate flag
On June 7, at the start of a race in Atlanta, he wears a T-shirt marked I can’t breathe (“I can’t breathe”) that he shows up on the grid. Another reference to the explosion caused by the Floyd affair. In the American daily newspaper The New York Times, the pilot turned militant recently confided: “At the beginning of my career, it was not a question of color for me and I never thought of being treated differently, because I was black . “
Wallace had the merit of imposing in the ultra-conservative milieu of NASCAR, heir to the alcohol smugglers who tried to escape from the police during the prohibition period, themes that had previously been prohibited from cited. Think of the presence of the Confederate flag in the stands of the rings where tens of thousands of spectators are piled up, a reviled symbol of segregation and which the supporters proudly display.
“It is a symbol of hatred, there is nothing good in this flag,” says Bubba. A risky position that could have cost him dearly, like the American football player Colin Kaepernick, ostracized by his sport for having put a knee on the ground during the American anthem traditionally sung at the start of each match. basketball, baseball or US football in the United States. It’s quite the opposite.
Hangman’s rope found in his garage
The rebel wins his case with the governing body of NASCAR which banishes the flag from the stands. The pill seems to have trouble getting through to some recalcitrant fans and the pilot expresses his excitement when, on the door of his team’s garage, he finds a hanged rope. A reminder of the lynchings practiced in the South.
The case has a huge impact. The FBI is even seized of the file and completes the investigation in a few hours. The fine sleuths conclude that the native of Mobile erred in judgment: the act is not racist, the noose was there since last fall as evidenced by photographs. Meanwhile, Bubba received the full support of his peers who all pushed his car to the starting line.
“Racism has no place in motorsport, says French driver Simon Pagenaud, who has entered the driver’s pantheon since winning the Indianapolis 500 Miles in 2019. My team and I want to make our sport possible everyone to enjoy it and be a part of it. “
Under the cameras, emotion seizes the young driver who receives a long hug from his boss Richard Petty with whom he shares the spotlight in the third part of the cartoon “Cars”. There is no doubt that the scriptwriters of Hollywood will quickly look into this character who shakes up the codes.
