2023 NASCAR THREAD!!!

I'm likely opening a can of worms in which goalposts will be moved but, I find it interesting that the folks who get all worked up over Bubba Wallace's public handling of emotions don't do the same with Noah. Noah is the same if not worse about self-regulating disappointment and frustration yet, he gets a pass whereas Bubba, for some reason, gets put on blast for publicly showing emotion about things within and beyond his control.

 

I think Talladega in 2020 put a sour taste in everyone's mouth. There was a huge NASCAR parade around him and the entire story was just not what it should have been. Black, white, green or purple, it doesn't matter. I will give it to Bubba, he brings the sponsors but he's just not my cup of tea.

 

In regard to the incident with Larson the two situations are not comparable. Bubba took a cheap shot and then proceeded to toss Larson around after the fact and after walking across the infield on an active raceway to confront Larson. Noah waited until the race was over, waited until Ross got out of his car and went to talk to him and one thing led to another. Plus Bubba plays the victim card. Noah has never done that.

 

Lets be honest. Bubba's marketability is based on his ethnicity. Furthermore he play that card whenever something does not go his way. That is the part that puts a sour taste in most peoples mouth. Bubba has not sniffed the success that Noah found in the lesser series. In equal equipment with the same amount of time I expect the stat line would show Noah to be a much more successful driver when compared to Bubba. It would seem Bubba has and is making a career based on his ethnicity rather than his performance. For some reason people feel that if they do not go to bat for him based on his race then they are in fact racist. Simply put, he has been given more opportunity than most and done less with it.

 

Didn’t Noah have everyone in NASCAR pissed at him last year for the stuffed he pulled

 

He did, and we called him out also. He was flat out wrong. And he came out and said as much. It did not make it go away but you will not find a clip of Bubba doing the same.

 

Oh- I agree, but NASCAR made that moment a spectacle and tried to capitalize on the color of his skin in that moment. They made him a pawn. It was purely a marketing thing on NASCAR's part. They wanted to look more progressive than the other pro-sports at that moment, and it backfired, and Bubba took all the heat for their marketing gimmick. And him, being the only black driver, well, the media turned to him for comment, and given it was an active investigation and he never even saw it, well, he was ill-equipped to provide any additional detail. And again, in that moment of everything going on, he gave his opinion. It was so insignificant, I don't even remember what it was.

 

I wasn't talking about that incident, but rather, in-car video of drivers pouting after a race, shoving mics and cameras in their faces in the heat of the moment, etc. That Larson deal, well that's nothing new to the sport. Fast cars and hot heads are a cornerstone of stock car racing. Look at the 1979 Daytona 500 infield fight for one. Then all the rivalries over the years: Bodine, Earnhardt, Allisons, Elliott, Wallace, Rudd, Sadler, shoot I'm not even in the 21st century yet.

 

this was all done because of, not for. NASCAR was part of the problem and not the solution as you mention. Either way, Bubba needs to perform, MJ will not tolerate any less.

 

Nor will you find a clip of Steve O'Donell Saying NASCAR was wrong about Talladega '20, which is truthfully where the blame lies for that deal.

 

He has as many wins as Ross Chastain. Wrecked fewer people, too.

 

I mean when the FBI gets involved for a loop being tied into a piece of rope that was proven to have been present for more than a year. Was in fact not a noose and you do several interviews in tears over the mental trauma this has caused. And the culmination is the entire field following you down pit road not because of what you have achieved but because it was mandated as a publicity stunt. Then you proceed to act a fool and the sanctioning body refuses to penalize the person for it. And the guy you are assaulting has his hands up and might very well be concussed because you just tried to kill him. And by the way that person just lost his job and millions of dollars for making a mistake (for saying a no no word) which he owned and more than paid for, even though that person is as much of a minority as the other. All this when you were raised as upper middle class as it gets and have been handed opportunity after opportunity. Yeah, it gets old.

 

I do not disagree but Bubba also had the ability to put a stop to it all at anytime but he chose to allow himself to become a poster boy for inequality. Every one of those drivers should just come out and say. Hey, I am a lucky MF to have this life. It's the same when a multimillionaire athlete speaks out about inequality. Its as hypocritical as it gets because they are the exception they are stating does not exist. Bubba chose to be a part of that. He could have just went about his business but he is in fact feeding a false narrative and cashing in on it.

 

He just needs to do his job and be held to the standard as any other driver. That machine he is piloting does not care about the color of his skin nor does it have anything to do with his ability to do his job. Why then does the sport feel the need to have him in every commercial? I get it is the sports doing but he allows it and plays into it all. About the best all around person from my perspective in the entire sport currently is Ryan Blaney. Yet he is more often than not excluded and overlooked by NASCAR when it comes to promotion. Why is that? It is because the sport and our populace is biased, biased in the opposite direction of the narrative that is fed us and none of those non tangibles should matter. Ryan works to promote the sport as much or more than most. I could care less that Bubba is in the sport. I know I was cheering like hell for him to win the 500 when AD dumped him. Back then he was just a young driver and not a political pawn.

 

Fuck bubba.

 

Right after the fight was broken up, Chase Elliott is seen saying "somebody's gotta do it" to Noah as he was walking by.

 

NOTE: I've never been a Bubba fan.

You noted several separate events:

• NASCAR & the FBI investigation.
• NASCAR decided to do the whole PR campaign.
• "Proceed to act a fool and NASCAR refused to penalize the person." (this is common. What specific event was this?)
• 2022 Larson incident.
• Kyle Larson getting fired for the thing.
• Upper-middle-class upbringing.

Among these events, there are two that Bubba had control over and I don't see the correlation between them. I'm not trying to have an argument, just trying to understand the correlation and better understand your point.

 

He's wrecked more people because he races harder.

He's an old school driver in a new school world. That was the main reason I gravitated to him when Matty D went to Truck. He has heart. I saw that his first year with Ganassi. He'll figure out how to be aggressive without sending people into the wall with time... But it's that hunger that will make him into a future champion.

 

Now that was funny! That's the most personality we've seen out of Chase.