Saturday, August 13, 2022

Bubba Watson I mean Wallace

I'm a Southern Boy, NASCAR is in my blood and yeah it's personal. 

Saw my first Daytona when I was five. Was at Talladega the year Davy Allison died. 

My first summer love was a girl I met at Cherry Gove Beach, South Carolina.  I fell hard when she told me she was from Bristol Tennessee and that her High School was right next door to the Speedway. 

A dozen years later, I would find myself in the offices of Morgan–McClure Motorsports in a last ditch effort to fund another Daytona run for the No. 4 car and save the operation in the middle of a growing financial crisis, that led eventually to a criminal indictment.

That same year we lost David Poole a good friend and writer for the Charlotte Observer. He was God's gift to sports writing and NASCAR in particular.

So yeah I've been around.  

And being "long in the tooth" certain things "grind my gears".

Stage racing, post race inspections and Bubba Wallace.

Bubba Wallace aka William Darrell Wallace Jr. it has been reported that he drives the No. 23 Toyota Camry for 23XI Racing. I don't follow Bubba but I don't need to since NASCAR spends much of their advertising budget reminding me about Bubba.

For some reason he's NASCAR's "poster boy"


Noose gate was the deal breaker, but even long before that his "look at me, I'm black" bull shit was over the top. Yet much of the hate directed at Bubba is self inflicted in a Jussie Smollett sort of way.

NASCAR has embraced Bubba Wallace as a way to grow their fan base. But they've actually done just the opposite. 

In 2014 the average viewership for Cup Series races was 5.3 million. In 2019, that number had dropped to just 2.92 million. That is a decrease of nearly 50%, and in many races that kind of decline could be seen in the stands.

In 2021, NASCAR averaged about 2.93 million viewers across the season. That includes rainouts, races on cable channels such as FOX Sports 1 and NBC Sports Network, and several events held head-to-head with major competition: the Olympics, NCAA Tournament, NBA Finals, etc.

It may be just the post COVID blues and the "Putin's Price Hike" on RV owners, but the crowds aren't the same. In fact they may be even lower than 2021.

Can't blame Bubba this is NASCAR's doing. 

I certainly hope Bubba wins this weekend and then that the No. 23 car fails the post race inspection. That would be fun to watch.

Racist is what Bubba will claim and so it goes.....


9 comments:

Anonymous said...

It will be interesting to watch the comments that will come. Bubba is his own worst enemy. Sad to think people hate Bubba because he's Black. But they don't they hate him because he is regrettably very hateable.

Imagine if Chris Rock was driving the 23 or Kevin Hart I would guess there would be massive NASCAR Fan appreciation for a win. The reason is neither Hart or Rock have played to their skin color as an excuse.

Anonymous said...

They did the same thing for Danica which didn’t turn out well. It’s way over the top. Also, to be fair, they did this with Dale Jr. too even though he was not a consistently good driver. Did you see the panel of Michael Jordan and two other black commentators during the Daytona 500 (I think) talk about how Michael Jordan’s dad brought him to all sort of NASCAR races when he was a kid? Nice story (if true) but why tell it now? Why not years ago? Why did all three commentators have to be black? They are trying to push an agenda weather you like it or not. Old days were much better when you had real rivalries like Gordon vs Earnhardt, Ford vs Chevy, etc. The other side won because they were “cheating.” Actually made it more interesting in my opinion.

Anonymous said...

Why did LaFrank get kicked out of the fib and sent back to Tryon?

Anonymous said...

Ughhh…I just saw a black bum begging at Pineville Mall. This shit is everywhere.

Anonymous said...

I've always thought the "I'm Black Driver get used to it" was a bad move. The Bubba name is such a joke. Bubba at least in the South is brother or best brother my grand daddy was Bubba his formal name was Bartholomew so the nick name stuck because he was never a Bart.

Darrell Wallace wasn't going to work so WD would have been a good choice and give him the number 40?

Anonymous said...

1236, did he get his dick sucked like Cecil?

Anonymous said...

Got to love how Cecil gets to sit over IA boards and act like is God’s gift to policing while he ruins officer’s careers.

Anonymous said...

I've been pulling for the 43 and Erik Jones all year ;0)...

Anonymous said...

Who’s the thick female in IA who posts bikini pics on social media, looks like a West Meck alum.