Race: Bubba Wallace (2022): Season 1, Episode 1 - A Fresh Start - full transcript
♪...and the home of the brave ♪
They introduce you,
"Bubba Wallace,
NASCAR's only Black driver."
NASCAR's only
Black full-time driver, Bubba Wallace.
I've been hearing it for years.
It's whatever.
Like, I didn't care.
Still doesn't bother me 'cause,
end of the day, I'm the only one.
- When you're the only one...
- Thank you, sir.
...everything you do
is under a microscope.
They're using that to justify
whether or not you even belong.
What do I think about myself?
I'm the same as everybody else.
All right, let's go.
We're just drivers at the end
of the day, and I'm there to win.
And then the 2020 season...
- Say his name!
- George Floyd!
Athletes are using
their platform.
I started voicing my opinion
about what it's like
to be Black in America.
Bubba Wallace asking
NASCAR to ban the Confederate flag.
- This would be real change.
- A noose was found.
Some people are suggesting
that this is a hoax.
Get on social media,
look at the comments.
"NASCAR's using Bubba
as the token Black racer."
"He's a marketing tool."
"We're no longer fans of NASCAR."
"We don't like you.
We're turning this off."
Fans can be relentless.
The moment you take a stand
as a Black person in America...
Now you're defined by that stand.
He's gonna wreck it!
And you better be good.
Spinning top!
Daytona is the biggest race
of the year.
It's the first race of the year.
Gets your blood flowing again.
I know all of us wish
we had a bit more time
to get things prepared,
but we're working really hard.
- Pedals feel okay?
- Feel good.
- I like that.
- Like it better?
I just got
the final seat fitting done.
I wanna say we could go down
with the wheel a little bit.
We're nine days away.
- Up one?
- Yeah.
Okay. I'm good in here.
I know we got
a lot of shit to do. Um...
I am beyond excited
about this opportunity.
We'll have our growing pains,
but we only get one debut with a new team,
and we have to make the most of it.
So I wanted to say thank you
from the bottom of my heart.
I know it's been... not even an off-season,
but everybody's been
busting their ass to get stuff done
and to make this deal happen.
So I just wanna say thanks.
That's it. That's all I have.
Anything? Okay.
Thank you, guys.
- See y'all down there.
- Half of us.
- What's up?
- Hey.
Steve.
23XI is the NASCAR team
that I own with Michael Jordan
that fields the race car for Bubba Wallace
in the NASCAR Cup Series.
NASCAR has a new racing team
co-owned by Michael Jordan.
Jordan becoming
the first Black primary owner
of a NASCAR team in about 50 years.
I'm a big, uh, race fan.
Started off when I was a kid,
and I grew up watching Richard Petty.
Now I'm good friends with Denny Hamlin.
We go way back.
He's a season ticket holder with
the Hornets, and I play golf with him.
Michael's ultimately
the face of this race team.
He's the biggest name,
but I have my brand
at stake in this as well.
You know, we've won in the Cup Series now
for 16 years,
and, similar to him, I don't like to lose.
That fire and that competitiveness is
what's gonna make this race team succeed.
I've been so excited
for the race season to start.
I can... I got this, babe.
- You don't need to help.
- I've got ten minutes.
The new team is so fresh in this sport.
It just feels like a new start.
Need some water?
Asher.
I mean, there's a lot to look forward to,
and it's been fun.
- Are you excited?
- Yep.
Here we go.
So I'm taking the bus down.
One, I fell in love with driving it
at the end of the season last year.
And then, two, I wanted
to get down to Daytona early anyways,
just to get away from the chaos.
So I was like, "I'll drive it and be set."
Then my bus driver will take over
for the rest of the season.
This is a new opportunity, new beginning.
I'm excited to get to Daytona.
Fresh start.
Because 2020 was
the craziest year of my life.
Our lead story tonight
is the coronavirus outbreak.
...virus officially hitting
the US.
President Trump is closing
the border with Canada.
The NBA
shocking the sports world...
The NBA suspends the season
after a player tested positive...
On March 13, 2020,
like every other major sport,
we shut down.
We were loading our Truck Series trucks
into the garage at Atlanta
when we pulled the plug.
There are just too many uncertainties.
It's not safe. We're gonna stop.
Which we had done...
never, frankly, in our history.
Atlanta Motor Speedway
is where the NASCAR hiatus starts.
Where it will finish,
that remains to be seen.
Everything come
to a screeching halt.
You know, nobody's outside,
and it's kind of crazy to think about.
Almost felt like a movie.
Pandemic shutdown, and, you know,
the world went up in a blaze,
country went up in a blaze.
Tonight, in city after city,
calls for justice
continue to fill the streets.
- Black lives matter!
- Young, inclusive,
united by shared concern.
...video of an African-American
man chased down and killed...
His family says
he was out jogging.
They're calling it a hate crime.
The day the Ahmaud Arbery video
was put out,
I didn't see it till midnight.
I was playing Call of Duty,
and I was like, "I'm tired."
And in between games,
I was about to go to bed,
and I had seen my cousin had posted
a video on his story on Instagram.
And I clicked on it,
and, uh, and I watched it.
And I was like, "What in the hell?
What just happened?"
I watched it again,
and I was just dumbfounded
at what I had just witnessed.
Black man being chased down by civilians.
And shot and killed.
That was midnight, and I was up
till 2:00 a.m. watching that video.
Didn't sleep for shit.
When he came out of the bedroom
the next morning,
he was, like, visibly sad about something.
I think he said something like,
"I saw something online last night."
And I was like, "I saw it too."
And, uh, yeah, that one...
that one still haunts me.
The video has now trumped
pandemic concerns.
- Who we run with?
- Maud!
I have never seen Darrell
be vocal
about matters that impact other people.
He has to watch everything he says,
especially in the sport that he's in.
The sport was founded
in 1948 in Daytona Beach, Florida.
As anyone could imagine,
given the South's history
and given the country's history in 1948,
uh, NASCAR was not necessarily set up
in the beginning to... to be welcoming.
NASCAR's not known
for being woke.
Okay, that's not really their lane.
They've gone through small pockets
of discussing racism
and the presence of the Confederate flag,
but generally they don't.
NASCAR's roots
came from moonshiners
and people wanting to outrun the police,
and when they weren't running moonshine,
they wanted to race each other
and see who was
the baddest of the badasses around.
Stock car racing
is primarily in the Deep South.
Now, of course, NASCAR's made
great strides to make it a national sport,
but the roots of NASCAR
are the Deep South,
the moonshine, you know,
Bible Belt type of environment.
NASCAR has the perception,
some earned, some not, quite frankly,
about being a sport that's geared
towards Southern white males.
There's only been
four Black drivers
since the 1960s to race at the top level
of NASCAR, the Cup Series.
Black drivers were met
with a lot of resistance.
Couldn't stay in hotels,
weren't able to be in the same places
as their white counterparts.
In a lot of cases, they weren't welcomed
in the way that... that they would be now
and that they are now.
Jake Crum, Ryan Gifford,
Darrell Wallace Jr.
Let's give all these K&N
and Pro Series East drivers
a big round of applause.
Eleven years ago,
I had my first K&N race with Rev Racing.
It's basically like a feeder system
into NASCAR'S national top three series.
And we were in Greenville-Pickens.
Start your engines!
We got there, and we kicked ass.
♪ I was like damn... ♪
Finish it up!
Get that checkered, Bubba Wallace!
Hell of a job, kid! Whoo!
Darrell Wallace Jr. in
his first start picks up his first win!
Won another race.
Darrell Wallace Jr.
does planking in Victory Lane tonight.
Okay, now you're really on the radar.
We got a call from Joe Gibbs Racing.
It was like, "We've been watching.
We're impressed."
We are keenly aware
of what's going on over there.
You know, you see the talent in those
young guys, and it jumps out at you.
I'm a rookie at it,
so I just dove in there. See ya.
We started our diversity team here
in about 2003,
and we said he'd be a great person
to enter into our program here,
our diversity program.
This Joe Gibbs Racing Camry is awesome.
I can't thank the guys enough.
"What's next, Coach Gibbs?"
"Well, Kyle Busch has a truck team."
So, we go truck racing.
I was racing
for Joe Gibbs in the Cup Series,
and so it became a discussion
between he and I, like,
"We wanna get him from K&N,
get him into trucks,
so we'd like him to come to your place."
I was like, "Let's take a look at him."
Darrell Wallace Jr.'s
gonna get his first win
in the Camping World Truck Series!
Oh, my God!
We went to win at Gateway.
Darrell Wallace wins again!
And then followed it up with Eldora.
Darrell Wallace Jr.
has put on a clinic.
Went to Martinsville, won again.
Darrell Wallace,
short track sensation,
second year in a row!
That's when we get into 2015.
It was time for the next step,
which was the Xfinity Series.
Drove there for three years.
Congratulations,
Darrell Wallace Jr., Stage 2 winner.
And then it was like,
"Okay. Here's your shot."
My name is Richard Petty.
Richard Petty has won in his
career far more than any other racer.
I'm a seven-time champion
of NASCAR...
Richard Petty has won
the 200th race of his incomparable career.
...and co-owner
of Richard Petty Motorsports.
Crowded there
at the front right, two...
Whoa! Big crash.
Danica Patrick and Joey Logano
and Aric Almirola.
Aric Almirola was driving our car
and had a bad accident
and wasn't able to drive for,
I don't know, five or six races.
We were looking at who we were gonna put
in the car until Aric gets back.
Darrell Wallace
with a win at Homestead!
We said, "Here's a guy that's won
a couple Truck Series and stuff,
and he, you know, seems to be
an up-and-coming driver,"
so we contacted him.
I'm jacked up right now.
This is a cool opportunity. Very thankful.
They were like,
"You're in for the next four races."
He sits
on the throne of the king,
Richard Petty's famed Number 43.
When you get to the Cup Series,
that's the highest you can get in NASCAR.
And he'd never been in a Cup car.
And they're so much different,
heavier, handle different, work different.
It worked out really good
for those particular races.
By that fourth race,
we were almost Top 10.
I was like, "Okay. I can do this."
He adapted real good,
he got along with the crew real good.
Then at the end of the year,
Aric said he was gonna do something else,
and we said, "Hey, call Bubba up."
I'm gonna be driving the iconic Number 43
for this guy right here.
First thing you knew,
we got Bubba driving for us.
Shit was fun.
That's the most you've talked
in your entire life.
I left out the part where I kicked
his ass for a couple years too.
I've known Bubba
almost 20-plus years now.
We started racing with each other
when I was 12. He was nine at the time.
We'd get out the racetrack,
and this freaking car is ripping laps.
I mean, kicking ass.
Car pulls in, door opens up,
and this 80-pound kid gets out of it.
I was like, I remember to this day,
I looked at my dad, I said,
"Bullshit. That kid is cheating."
Going from the friend role
to the manager role, it's weird at times.
First couple years, it was new to us,
but we've gotten
a really good system down now
to where we can go ahead
and still have fun, but at the same time,
get serious and talk business.
A lot of the world needs to
understand that this is probably the most,
if not one of the most, pressured athletes
in all of sports history.
And I-I'll go to my...
my grave saying that.
You know, Bubba Wallace
is obviously in a unique space.
You know, even more unique
than the space that Tiger was in in golf.
While in golf,
there's sort of an implicit,
"We don't have Black people here,"
NASCAR is so associated with the South
and also associated
with a type of Southerner.
And you look at the Confederate flag
and the iconography.
He's surrounded by people who are
from the same part of the world as him,
but not the same as him.
This whole time,
I wanted to focus on my career.
I'm just always racing, racing, racing.
That was it.
You know, I never watched the news.
...demanding justice
for the killing of Trayvon Martin.
...Philando Castile...
...teenager was shot and killed
in Ferguson, Missouri.
- No peace!
- I didn't speak out.
- ...charged in the death of Freddie Gray.
- ...investigate the death...
...was shot by an officer,
37-year-old Alton Sterling...
I don't wanna pay attention.
I need to focus on racing.
For the longest time, that was true.
Like, I was selfish, you know?
And then the 2020 season happened.
Our goal was to be
the first major sport back, and we were.
It's been unique today.
NASCAR had all the protocols laid out
to safely get the teams in here.
Temperature checks,
social distancing, masks on,
everybody following
the rules very closely.
After a 71-day hiatus,
we raced at Darlington, South Carolina,
on May 17th.
Obviously, with no fans.
We know how many tickets
were sold for today's race. Zero.
The fans are not yet allowed back.
Without fans, you're pulling in,
and there's no traffic,
there's no people walking around.
Green flag! NASCAR is back!
We were already dealing
with the devastation of COVID.
And then... a problem
that has always existed in America comes,
not just bubbling to the surface,
it came just boiling to the surface.
- I'm sorry.
- Stay in the car.
- Let me see your other hand.
- I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
- Please, Officer. I didn't do nothing.
- Both hands!
Put your fucking hands up now!
Let me see your other hand.
- Please don't shoot me.
- I'm not shooting you.
- Please, man. I just lost my mom.
- 320, we're taking one out.
- Step out and face away.
- Man...
With George Floyd,
I'm sitting there watching the videos,
everything that had happened on TV.
George Floyd was a man,
a Black man in his forties
who died at the hands
of Minneapolis Police last night.
I was crying,
watching him say, "I can't breathe,"
and then when he called out his mama,
it was just so...
It... It... It hurt.
So, I remember getting my phone,
and I text Bubba,
and I was just crying as I sent the text,
and he never responded.
I'm not a person to...
talk about things.
I bottle it up,
and it just builds and builds and builds,
and then it... explodes.
And, you know,
I was at a point where it's like,
you know... I need to say something.
How have you processed
everything that has kinda transpired
throughout the course of the last week?
I don't know if you can
really truly process it.
I never knew the impact of that text
until he did an interview
and they had asked
a question about his mom.
How much do you weigh in
with your family and... and your mom?
I know she's
an important dynamic in your life.
And Bub's like,
"Well, you know, speaking of my mom,
she sent me a text."
He said, "Let me read it to you."
My mom said, "Good morning."
"I pray as a mom of a Black son
I never have to hear
you crying out, 'I can't breathe.'"
"I love you, Bubba,
and your life matters to me."
So...
Bubba was born
in Mobile, Alabama, in 1993.
He was just two when we moved here
to Concord, North Carolina.
We had moved into a subdivision.
So, Bubba was always running around.
He wasn't a homebody. He was always out
and about, exploring the neighborhood.
Me and Bubba are five years apart.
So, growing up, we were pretty close.
He is your goofy kid. He's a daredevil,
really humble, down-to-earth.
He loves to play jokes.
My sister called me "Bubba"
since the day I was born,
and it stuck.
My sister played basketball, then it was
me and my dad at the racetrack.
His dad wanted to make sure
he'd be able to run up there
with the best of them.
So he did not hold back on what he spent
to make sure
that Bubba was able to compete.
Being in an interracial marriage
was not common, um, during the early '90s.
And I even found myself,
when I would see couples like me,
I found myself staring at them,
because you just didn't see that
that often.
My family, both sides have always
treated me with love, I felt like.
Everybody loves kids,
no matter what they look like.
Our thing was always,
"You get the best of both worlds."
You know that old phrase,
"We don't see color"?
We didn't put emphasis on Black or white.
He never was one of those that was
struggling with his true identity.
If he was with Black friends,
he got along with Black friends.
If he was with white friends,
he got along with white friends.
Bubba just got along with everybody,
so I don't think it really affected him
in any, you know, type of way.
Bubba looks at it as,
"When we put those race helmets on,
you don't know what color I am."
"We're just race car drivers."
And that's really all Bubba really
wants to do is race, drive, and win.
The Daytona 500
is our sport's biggest race.
It's our Super Bowl.
It's like a homecoming for everybody,
the first race of the year,
getting everybody back together again.
When you start a team,
I think to have long-term success,
a lot of that
revolves around your personnel,
and I chose Wheels for good reason.
I'm Mike Wheeler,
crew chief for the Number 23 car
as well as competition director
for 23XI racing.
My nickname is "Wheels."
I've been called "Wheels" for a long time.
He was someone I've worked with
throughout my entire career
up until the last two years.
I was his engineer
for about a decade on the Cup side
and his crew chief
on the Cup side for three seasons.
So what I do here is kinda like
the head coach in football
or the manager for the baseball team.
You deal with the driver, make the final
decisions at the race track,
be on the radio,
making the final strategy calls.
Have a lot of guys underneath you,
both mechanical and engineering side,
but you give the final decisions
for a lot of the stuff.
Before Daytona, you're still trying to
dot all the I's and cross all the T's
to make sure you do it right.
That's never an easy process.
I wanna give the driver confidence
to race hard from the beginning.
But until you're at the track,
you never know how fast you'll be.
That is Bubba Wallace.
The first time the new 23XI team
has been on track.
And look
who he's following right now.
The teammate from the Toyota camp,
but car owner Denny Hamlin also.
Manufacturer relationships really
started ramping up around 2015 to 2016.
A lot of what steers the speed of your car
comes from those manufacturers,
and that's becoming more and more shared
through organizations
that run the same cars.
These five Toyotas
are putting some great times together.
We look at 23XI and Joe Gibbs Racing
as a Toyota team.
We go to these race tracks
and work together as teammates
because of the Toyota relationship
that we have.
When we're together, we've got
the four drivers from Joe Gibbs Racing
and then the fifth driver
from 23XI with Bubba.
Bubba Wallace
has the fastest lap,
and, yes, he was in the draft
when that happened.
He'll have bragging rights this evening.
Our 23 car was super fast.
I didn't expect us to be top of the board,
but I was like, "Hey, that's good."
Creating headlines already.
Michael Jordan
will see that. First person they'll text.
We all wanna win
and for him to perform well.
Bubba's got a lot of weight
on his shoulders.
I'd say from my standpoint,
I try not to put anymore pressure on him.
You know, obviously, who Bubba is
is a separate entity
from being just a normal race car driver.
My name is Ty Dillon.
I've been racing full-time
in the NASCAR series since I was 19.
I just turned 29 this year.
I have a full family of racing history.
My grandfather is Richard Childress,
known as RCR,
famously for owning Dale Earnhardt's car
that won a bunch of championships.
My dad raced all the way up
into what is now the Xfinity Series.
And then my brother, Austin,
is currently in the Cup Series,
and I get to race against him
on the weekends. It's pretty cool.
I've known Ty
ever since we were ten and 11,
and Ty and I have been racing
against each other ever since then.
Last year, the protests
were starting to happen.
I remember sitting in bed with my wife
and watching the footage
and the hurt in people.
- Say his name!
- George Floyd!
As a white male growing up
in a predominately white sport,
I couldn't act
like I knew what that felt like,
but I knew I could listen.
No justice! No Peace!
No justice! No peace!
No justice! No peace!
The first person
I really knew and grew up with
who was in a similar situation
but is Black was Bubba.
I got a text from Ty,
and it was just like,
"What do you think about doing an
Instagram live to share your experiences?"
And I put my phone down. I was like, "No."
We want convictions, not arrests!
I sat there and thought about it.
And I was like, "Ah! Why not? Let's go."
- Yo.
- Yo.
What's up?
What up, homie?
"So, what are your experiences?"
And I told him.
He was dumbfounded.
I get... I get stuff all the time.
"I'm only here because I'm Black."
"If it wasn't for the diversity program,
I wouldn't be here."
It's every day. It's every day
on my... on my mentions that, uh...
that I am here because I'm Black.
The first time that Bub really had
a run-in with, let's say the N-word,
was at one of the local tracks.
And Bub came over
and asked us, "What is that word?"
Because it was never used here.
You know, my way of explaining it
was just somebody being ignorant.
Um, it was a... a negative word
used against Black people.
His dad was very irate.
Profanity was thrown around,
threats were thrown around.
Out of 20 times I've been pulled over,
I've only gotten three tickets.
Thank you. I will take that.
But I got pulled over a year ago
driving a Lexus, nice car.
Um...
And he's like, "Is this your car?"
I said, "Yep."
He said, "Can you afford this car?"
Oh, my gosh.
And I said, I said, "Yes, sir, I can,"
with an attitude.
I could've said, "And I can afford one
for you and every person in your family,"
but I didn't, you know?
Because who knows what would happen then.
But, outside the racetrack,
you know, I deal with that stuff.
It... brings back memories of...
I had a nephew, 18 years old,
that was shot and killed
by a police officer in 2003.
Sean went out to a club
in Knoxville, Tennessee that night,
and, apparently,
went to Weigel's, a gas station,
and how we would do,
played loud music after the club.
And the clerk...
happened to be white.
Seeing a bunch of Black folk
outside having a good time.
Started to get nervous.
Cops come.
I guess he asked
for Sean and his friend
to turn down the music or whatever,
and when Sean gets in trouble,
he always calls his mom or my auntie
to let her know.
And, um, in his attempt,
I guess, to call his mom
is when the shot was fired into his chest.
And from there, they rushed him
to the hospital, and he died.
And that was it.
I often asked my mom
what happened.
I don't know why I kept asking.
My family relives it every time
that there is a Black person killed,
you know, by a police officer.
We relive it just like the families
that are currently living it.
We witnessed today
a moving service for George Floyd.
I never knew those stories, um,
that had happened to you.
I figured his life was like mine.
He went to the racetrack.
And to hear those stories
and to think about, like...
I never thought twice about dealing with
those things in my racing career.
That's the pain I'm seeing on TV.
That's... that's the hurt
I'm seeing in so many people, um,
that, maybe, I never understood.
Yeah.
Like, "I've known Bubba my whole life.
There ain't no way that could happen."
It happens.
There's a lot of stress just going on,
emotionally, personally,
with everything
he was having to deal with,
and I think he does a great job
of, um, compartmentalizing things
and being able to go race hard
every weekend, and he's right there at it.
I think we got shuffled
to the back through some rain-flag cycles.
We had a really fast...
The Duels set your
starting position for the Daytona 500.
So, you have to race
for your qualifying spot
and your starting spot in the Daytona 500.
Ready to roll.
Uh, I know MJ's either in his bus
or he's up there watching,
so he's here.
Any extra pressure
since the boss is here tonight?
- Nah. Pressure is all good.
- Good luck.
- Got me on radio 2?
- 10-4, I got you on 2.
Freddie is the guy in my ear
for... 11 years now.
Might take
a couple races to get used to my ritual
here in a second.
What's that mean?
We say the same stuff
every race.
My job is to keep him safe,
tell him where the cars are around him.
The best way I can relate is the eyes
for a driver while he's in the car.
All right, brother.
Sixty laps. Six-zero.
Just be smart, man. You know, fast car.
Take care of it. We want to race
this one on Sunday. Let's go to work.
Yes, sir!
3's coming up top.
Just you and him.
And Bubba Wallace
goes to the lead.
I wasn't in it.
I had already qualified.
So, it was kind of the first race
in which I got to go out and watch.
And from my standpoint
sitting up in the suite with Jordan,
I was looking at a lot of his moves,
and I was just thinking,
"He's making the right moves."
I mean, there was maybe
one or two times where I thought,
"Ah, maybe you shouldn't go to that line."
Manage your gap.
He's gonna split you. Middle, middle.
That's gonna be tough
on Bubba Wallace. Gonna go way back here.
When the inside lane
started coming, didn't block that route.
You gotta be decisive.
Wallace falls back to 14.
Biggest thing
is getting respect.
Show them you belong, you have a fast car.
Took a few years getting there.
10-4 on that.
Just two of 'em left
in the middle.
Thing's got speed.
We've seen speed out of that car all week.
Coming to the
cross flags halfway, 30 laps complete,
but yet we have that
all-important pit stop to come.
- It's all about Pit Road for us.
- Two tires to finish?
Yeah.
I'm good with that.
So, in a duel,
where the race is super short...
Green page, here. One red.
...you want to be on Pit Lane
as short as possible.
Pit Road speed starting.
The less amount of time,
the further it's gonna put you in front.
Ten away.
Stop, five, three, two, one.
Race, race, race, race, race.
Good right there.
Bubba's got work to do
in that Toyota to get back to the front.
All right, 20 to go here.
Big run coming on the
outside with the Toyotas. All lined up.
How'd they all
get together again?
Our car's pretty good,
both lanes.
Looks good out there.
They know we're here.
I tell you what,
Bubba Wallace, I'm impressed.
He's been aggressive,
but he's also been patient enough
to find his way back to the front.
Be aggressive.
See if we can decide this.
There's something about Daytona.
I'm telling you,
when it gets down to the end,
you feel it in that race car.
I know we want to win,
but got a hot rod,
make sure we're racing it on Sunday.
- Here's Smithley. Two!
- Oh no!
Smithley got into Keselowski.
Wreck behind you.
- Yellow.
- Gragson, in the wall.
So is the 24, Byron.
Chastain.
And that's a front row starting car, guys.
- Not anymore.
- Nope.
Take what you can get.
Not a lot of strong cars left. A few left.
Copy that.
Ready.
Three Toyotas got lined up.
- That worked out.
- Perfect. Textbook.
There's gonna be a run coming
on the outside.
On you tight.
Watch the bottom. There you go.
There's the white flag.
One to go.
They're running hard to get a run.
Now tight on you.
Get tight on this 3.
The 3 of Austin Dillon's
there to second, but...
Oh, I think give this to Martin Truex Jr.
Those guys behind
are gonna need a lot of help.
- Two back are your help.
- Here's help from the 12.
There he is!
Truex tried to block Dillon,
and he got 3 widened.
How about the run by Bubba!
I remember all of us
standing up.
And, of course, Michael,
he likes to yell play-by-play.
I remember saying, "Gotta be kidding me.
We're gonna win our first race?"
Gonna have to get up
and block 'em.
Top. Watch your bottom.
Dillon to the bottom.
- Here they come, racing to the line!
- Oh!
It is Dillon!
- Power move there.
- That's how we do it!
Fuck!
Yeah.
You got a good car
for Sunday.
What a performance
by Bubba, first race with this team.
You came that close to winning it.
What're you gonna take away
from this performance?
Lot of mistakes.
Um...
Good debut,
but nothing to be happy about.
I know I got a lot to learn here,
but all in all, it was a good night,
but I got some learning to do.
Great result for that
brand-new race team and Bubba Wallace.
Car's still straight.
A little damage, but we'll be all right.
Car's strong.
I think the field knows we're here,
so that's a big deal.
We'll get Bubba some experience and
confidence and give 'em hell on Sunday.
Sorry, dawg.
When that happens, I'm like, "Fuck,"
instead of being like,
"Okay, what do I need to block next?"
I go for that "fuck" moment,
"That's too late."
But, um...
Fuck, that's hard to swallow.
- Fuck.
- Racing, man. Ha!
- No justice!
- No peace!
No justice!
No peace!
- No justice!
- No peace!
- Black lives matter!
- Black lives matter!
We've been to come-to-Jesus moments
when it comes to race in this country,
but this one was different.
It was touching everything.
Politics, sports, entertainment, culture.
It was everywhere, and it was unavoidable.
I really believe that, for many Americans,
they were watching the news,
trying to figure out COVID,
watching the death tolls go up.
And the news was like,
"Hold on. We have a bigger story."
And it was George Floyd being killed.
I think for a lot of white folks,
it was the first time they ever saw
a Black man being killed
by a police officer.
And so their reaction was very big,
and a lot of Black people
were like, "Yeah, this is bad,
but it's not the first one."
America's largest police force is facing
a serious controversy over a viral video.
My name is Gwen Carr.
I am the mother of Eric Garner.
He was my eldest son.
And he was the love of my life.
43-year-old Eric Garner
confronted by two plainclothes officers
for allegedly peddling illegal cigarettes.
I didn't do nothing. What did I do?
He was surrounded by cops.
They thought they needed to take him down,
and one cop put a choke hold
that I think is now illegal on him,
and as he was dying,
he said, "I can't breathe."
Garner was ultimately heard
saying, "I can't breathe," 11 times.
"I can't breathe."
The phrase itself is just...
It's just really...
It's just jarring.
It's just jarring.
It's devastating.
It's... It's a lot of things.
We want justice!
We want justice! We want justice!
The phrase, "I can't breathe,"
embedded in that phrase is the hope
that they will see you as a human.
'Cause what you're saying is,
"I know you're arresting me,
but right now you're killing me,"
which is the same thing George Floyd said.
Please, I can't breathe.
Please, man, I can't breathe.
When I seen what happened
to George Floyd,
it's like an... an echo,
an echo from the grave.
I can't breathe!
I can't breathe! I can't breathe!
But it did create a movement.
I can't breathe!
- Louder!
- I can't breathe! I can't breathe!
♪ How many mothers have to cry? ♪
♪ How many brothers gotta die? ♪
The protests went on and on,
and this is what we have to do.
♪ How many more times? ♪
♪ How many more marches? ♪
Don't take away our breath.
Do not take away our dignity.
♪ How many more lives? ♪
♪ How many more times? ♪
Some people,
they know what's right,
but they're not gonna speak up
for what's right.
And if you think that this is wrong,
what they're doing,
that you should speak about it,
and you should be about it.
- ♪ How many more times? ♪
- ♪ How many times? ♪
♪ I'll leave you with that ♪
When there were
protests everywhere,
it was a few days
before the race at Atlanta,
and we had talked
about him doing something.
And he talked about wanting to wear
a Black Lives Matter shirt.
But I'm like,
"Oof. It's a sticky situation."
But you know what?
This is what needs to happen.
Ordered off Amazon, got here the next day,
and, uh, I'm like... "This is happening."
He was so dead set on making a statement.
I was gonna show up
with that shirt on.
I thought I was going to lose my ride.
To be honest with you.
So be it.
My team had called me.
And they were like, "Hey, we wanna
make sure everything's all good
with you and everything that's going on."
And I was like, "I wasn't gonna tell you,
but I'm letting you know
that I'm... I'm wearing this T-shirt,"
and they were like,
"Great. We support you. Let's do it."
And I was like...
"All right. Cool."
I have a responsibility.
It's automatic I have a responsibility,
because of my background,
my heritage, you know, my family.
African-American driver
Bubba Wallace wore an...
Wallace wore a T-shirt
with George Floyd's final words
and "Black Lives Matter" on it.
...taking a stand
for what he believes in.
It was a shock to me.
People were like, "Well, did you know
that this is how he was?"
Totally clue... "Not my son. No."
It was pure joy for me.
You know, it's pretty cool being able to
see your baby brother use his platform.
And this puts the ball in the court
of anybody who has a problem with this.
Because I don't wanna be
associated with you.
True colors are gonna come out.
'Cause of everything
that happened with George Floyd,
I was in a mix of emotions,
and when I saw Bubba with the shirt on,
it brought...
it brought tears to my eyes,
you know, and...
The...
Excuse me. I'm sorry.
To see Bubba take that stand
and people marching in the streets,
I had to do something, you know,
and taking a knee
was j-just a small gesture.
A lot of people thought
me taking the knee was radical.
I don't see it as radical.
Now, what Mr. Wallace Jr. did?
Now, that's radical.
The last place that you expect
acts of resistance is NASCAR.
And so to be a Black man,
to be in that NASCAR space,
and to wear a shirt
that says, "I can't breathe,"
he knew he was putting himself out there.
It's brave, it's brave.
NASCAR drivers.
NASCAR drivers speaking out against racism
in support of protests.
It was one of those moments
where it's hard not to react and think,
"Holy shit. Did he just do that?"
Because it felt like Bubba was putting
a humongous target on his back.
I went straight to Twitter
because I wanted to see
what the reaction was.
The response was mixed,
because there are people
who don't want to mix sports and society.
They want to go to sports as an escape.
And then there are a lot of people
who expect athletes to take a stand.
It's not easy to be placed in that role
of having to represent an entire race,
especially in that sport,
but, nevertheless,
Bubba Wallace understood the assignment.
Thank you so much for joining us.
I appreciate, uh, you joining us here.
And the thing
that's so admirable about Bubba
is that he kept amping up the stakes.
To have NASCAR come out...
What'll you do if someone
raises a Confederate flag?
What's the next action, Bubba?
I don't know.
Good question.
"What does NASCAR need to do?" "Oh!"
I have that answer right here.
Um, no one should feel uncomfortable
when they come to a NASCAR race.
So it starts with Confederate flags.
Get them out. There's no place for 'em.
Get rid of the Confederate flag.
- What's with the tire?
- It's loose.
Oh!
Round they go
in a hard crash!
Bubba grew up winning.
Now he's finishing in mid-pack.
That's pressure in itself.
You have Michael Jordan at the track,
and it's one of your worst tracks?
- It's gotta play in your mind a bit.
- We don't sign checks to losers.
What's going on?
Pull it together, bud.
I think you have demons in you,
and we need to get those addressed.
It was such a bad divorce.
My parents' life is falling apart.
I'm struggling. I need help.
Who are they to tell us
what flag we can fly?
It's one thing to say,
"Ban the Confederate flag,"
but it's another to go, "I'll drop the mic
and drive a Black Lives Matter car."
They found a noose
in Bubba's garage stall.
My heart sank.
Someone's trying to intimidate Bubba.
There needs to be
a full FBI investigation.
Donald Trump is challenging Bubba
to apologize.
Bubba's friends
and competitors
have closed ranks around him.
I'm fucking trying
not to lose my fucking cool.
Protests continue
over the death of Floyd.
You can't fuckin'
cut down when somebody's underneath you.
Oh, my God.
♪ Oh, oh my God ♪
♪ I got to make it to the end ♪
♪ It's far
All my life I've been counted out ♪
♪ All my life has been hard, hard
Hard, hard ♪
♪ And oh my God ♪
♪ I got to make it to the end, it's far ♪
♪ The sun is burning
And it's getting hot ♪
♪ Feeling so alone, alone ♪
♪ There's only one thing left to do ♪
♪ I put the pedal to the floor ♪
♪ I put the pedal to the floor ♪
♪ I put the pedal to the floor ♪
♪ I put the pedal to the... ♪
♪ They're coming for my head ♪
♪ Leaving just to see my shame ♪
♪ I think they want me dead, dead ♪
♪ But no, I won't give up ♪
♪ Oh no, I can't give in ♪
♪ In my journey
God you know I'm gonna win ♪
♪ They're coming for my head ♪
♪ Leaving just to see my shame ♪
♪ I think they want me dead, dead ♪
♪ But no, I won't give up ♪
♪ To know I can't give in ♪
♪ I'm in my journey
God, you know I'm gonna win ♪
♪ Gonna win, oh ♪
They introduce you,
"Bubba Wallace,
NASCAR's only Black driver."
NASCAR's only
Black full-time driver, Bubba Wallace.
I've been hearing it for years.
It's whatever.
Like, I didn't care.
Still doesn't bother me 'cause,
end of the day, I'm the only one.
- When you're the only one...
- Thank you, sir.
...everything you do
is under a microscope.
They're using that to justify
whether or not you even belong.
What do I think about myself?
I'm the same as everybody else.
All right, let's go.
We're just drivers at the end
of the day, and I'm there to win.
And then the 2020 season...
- Say his name!
- George Floyd!
Athletes are using
their platform.
I started voicing my opinion
about what it's like
to be Black in America.
Bubba Wallace asking
NASCAR to ban the Confederate flag.
- This would be real change.
- A noose was found.
Some people are suggesting
that this is a hoax.
Get on social media,
look at the comments.
"NASCAR's using Bubba
as the token Black racer."
"He's a marketing tool."
"We're no longer fans of NASCAR."
"We don't like you.
We're turning this off."
Fans can be relentless.
The moment you take a stand
as a Black person in America...
Now you're defined by that stand.
He's gonna wreck it!
And you better be good.
Spinning top!
Daytona is the biggest race
of the year.
It's the first race of the year.
Gets your blood flowing again.
I know all of us wish
we had a bit more time
to get things prepared,
but we're working really hard.
- Pedals feel okay?
- Feel good.
- I like that.
- Like it better?
I just got
the final seat fitting done.
I wanna say we could go down
with the wheel a little bit.
We're nine days away.
- Up one?
- Yeah.
Okay. I'm good in here.
I know we got
a lot of shit to do. Um...
I am beyond excited
about this opportunity.
We'll have our growing pains,
but we only get one debut with a new team,
and we have to make the most of it.
So I wanted to say thank you
from the bottom of my heart.
I know it's been... not even an off-season,
but everybody's been
busting their ass to get stuff done
and to make this deal happen.
So I just wanna say thanks.
That's it. That's all I have.
Anything? Okay.
Thank you, guys.
- See y'all down there.
- Half of us.
- What's up?
- Hey.
Steve.
23XI is the NASCAR team
that I own with Michael Jordan
that fields the race car for Bubba Wallace
in the NASCAR Cup Series.
NASCAR has a new racing team
co-owned by Michael Jordan.
Jordan becoming
the first Black primary owner
of a NASCAR team in about 50 years.
I'm a big, uh, race fan.
Started off when I was a kid,
and I grew up watching Richard Petty.
Now I'm good friends with Denny Hamlin.
We go way back.
He's a season ticket holder with
the Hornets, and I play golf with him.
Michael's ultimately
the face of this race team.
He's the biggest name,
but I have my brand
at stake in this as well.
You know, we've won in the Cup Series now
for 16 years,
and, similar to him, I don't like to lose.
That fire and that competitiveness is
what's gonna make this race team succeed.
I've been so excited
for the race season to start.
I can... I got this, babe.
- You don't need to help.
- I've got ten minutes.
The new team is so fresh in this sport.
It just feels like a new start.
Need some water?
Asher.
I mean, there's a lot to look forward to,
and it's been fun.
- Are you excited?
- Yep.
Here we go.
So I'm taking the bus down.
One, I fell in love with driving it
at the end of the season last year.
And then, two, I wanted
to get down to Daytona early anyways,
just to get away from the chaos.
So I was like, "I'll drive it and be set."
Then my bus driver will take over
for the rest of the season.
This is a new opportunity, new beginning.
I'm excited to get to Daytona.
Fresh start.
Because 2020 was
the craziest year of my life.
Our lead story tonight
is the coronavirus outbreak.
...virus officially hitting
the US.
President Trump is closing
the border with Canada.
The NBA
shocking the sports world...
The NBA suspends the season
after a player tested positive...
On March 13, 2020,
like every other major sport,
we shut down.
We were loading our Truck Series trucks
into the garage at Atlanta
when we pulled the plug.
There are just too many uncertainties.
It's not safe. We're gonna stop.
Which we had done...
never, frankly, in our history.
Atlanta Motor Speedway
is where the NASCAR hiatus starts.
Where it will finish,
that remains to be seen.
Everything come
to a screeching halt.
You know, nobody's outside,
and it's kind of crazy to think about.
Almost felt like a movie.
Pandemic shutdown, and, you know,
the world went up in a blaze,
country went up in a blaze.
Tonight, in city after city,
calls for justice
continue to fill the streets.
- Black lives matter!
- Young, inclusive,
united by shared concern.
...video of an African-American
man chased down and killed...
His family says
he was out jogging.
They're calling it a hate crime.
The day the Ahmaud Arbery video
was put out,
I didn't see it till midnight.
I was playing Call of Duty,
and I was like, "I'm tired."
And in between games,
I was about to go to bed,
and I had seen my cousin had posted
a video on his story on Instagram.
And I clicked on it,
and, uh, and I watched it.
And I was like, "What in the hell?
What just happened?"
I watched it again,
and I was just dumbfounded
at what I had just witnessed.
Black man being chased down by civilians.
And shot and killed.
That was midnight, and I was up
till 2:00 a.m. watching that video.
Didn't sleep for shit.
When he came out of the bedroom
the next morning,
he was, like, visibly sad about something.
I think he said something like,
"I saw something online last night."
And I was like, "I saw it too."
And, uh, yeah, that one...
that one still haunts me.
The video has now trumped
pandemic concerns.
- Who we run with?
- Maud!
I have never seen Darrell
be vocal
about matters that impact other people.
He has to watch everything he says,
especially in the sport that he's in.
The sport was founded
in 1948 in Daytona Beach, Florida.
As anyone could imagine,
given the South's history
and given the country's history in 1948,
uh, NASCAR was not necessarily set up
in the beginning to... to be welcoming.
NASCAR's not known
for being woke.
Okay, that's not really their lane.
They've gone through small pockets
of discussing racism
and the presence of the Confederate flag,
but generally they don't.
NASCAR's roots
came from moonshiners
and people wanting to outrun the police,
and when they weren't running moonshine,
they wanted to race each other
and see who was
the baddest of the badasses around.
Stock car racing
is primarily in the Deep South.
Now, of course, NASCAR's made
great strides to make it a national sport,
but the roots of NASCAR
are the Deep South,
the moonshine, you know,
Bible Belt type of environment.
NASCAR has the perception,
some earned, some not, quite frankly,
about being a sport that's geared
towards Southern white males.
There's only been
four Black drivers
since the 1960s to race at the top level
of NASCAR, the Cup Series.
Black drivers were met
with a lot of resistance.
Couldn't stay in hotels,
weren't able to be in the same places
as their white counterparts.
In a lot of cases, they weren't welcomed
in the way that... that they would be now
and that they are now.
Jake Crum, Ryan Gifford,
Darrell Wallace Jr.
Let's give all these K&N
and Pro Series East drivers
a big round of applause.
Eleven years ago,
I had my first K&N race with Rev Racing.
It's basically like a feeder system
into NASCAR'S national top three series.
And we were in Greenville-Pickens.
Start your engines!
We got there, and we kicked ass.
♪ I was like damn... ♪
Finish it up!
Get that checkered, Bubba Wallace!
Hell of a job, kid! Whoo!
Darrell Wallace Jr. in
his first start picks up his first win!
Won another race.
Darrell Wallace Jr.
does planking in Victory Lane tonight.
Okay, now you're really on the radar.
We got a call from Joe Gibbs Racing.
It was like, "We've been watching.
We're impressed."
We are keenly aware
of what's going on over there.
You know, you see the talent in those
young guys, and it jumps out at you.
I'm a rookie at it,
so I just dove in there. See ya.
We started our diversity team here
in about 2003,
and we said he'd be a great person
to enter into our program here,
our diversity program.
This Joe Gibbs Racing Camry is awesome.
I can't thank the guys enough.
"What's next, Coach Gibbs?"
"Well, Kyle Busch has a truck team."
So, we go truck racing.
I was racing
for Joe Gibbs in the Cup Series,
and so it became a discussion
between he and I, like,
"We wanna get him from K&N,
get him into trucks,
so we'd like him to come to your place."
I was like, "Let's take a look at him."
Darrell Wallace Jr.'s
gonna get his first win
in the Camping World Truck Series!
Oh, my God!
We went to win at Gateway.
Darrell Wallace wins again!
And then followed it up with Eldora.
Darrell Wallace Jr.
has put on a clinic.
Went to Martinsville, won again.
Darrell Wallace,
short track sensation,
second year in a row!
That's when we get into 2015.
It was time for the next step,
which was the Xfinity Series.
Drove there for three years.
Congratulations,
Darrell Wallace Jr., Stage 2 winner.
And then it was like,
"Okay. Here's your shot."
My name is Richard Petty.
Richard Petty has won in his
career far more than any other racer.
I'm a seven-time champion
of NASCAR...
Richard Petty has won
the 200th race of his incomparable career.
...and co-owner
of Richard Petty Motorsports.
Crowded there
at the front right, two...
Whoa! Big crash.
Danica Patrick and Joey Logano
and Aric Almirola.
Aric Almirola was driving our car
and had a bad accident
and wasn't able to drive for,
I don't know, five or six races.
We were looking at who we were gonna put
in the car until Aric gets back.
Darrell Wallace
with a win at Homestead!
We said, "Here's a guy that's won
a couple Truck Series and stuff,
and he, you know, seems to be
an up-and-coming driver,"
so we contacted him.
I'm jacked up right now.
This is a cool opportunity. Very thankful.
They were like,
"You're in for the next four races."
He sits
on the throne of the king,
Richard Petty's famed Number 43.
When you get to the Cup Series,
that's the highest you can get in NASCAR.
And he'd never been in a Cup car.
And they're so much different,
heavier, handle different, work different.
It worked out really good
for those particular races.
By that fourth race,
we were almost Top 10.
I was like, "Okay. I can do this."
He adapted real good,
he got along with the crew real good.
Then at the end of the year,
Aric said he was gonna do something else,
and we said, "Hey, call Bubba up."
I'm gonna be driving the iconic Number 43
for this guy right here.
First thing you knew,
we got Bubba driving for us.
Shit was fun.
That's the most you've talked
in your entire life.
I left out the part where I kicked
his ass for a couple years too.
I've known Bubba
almost 20-plus years now.
We started racing with each other
when I was 12. He was nine at the time.
We'd get out the racetrack,
and this freaking car is ripping laps.
I mean, kicking ass.
Car pulls in, door opens up,
and this 80-pound kid gets out of it.
I was like, I remember to this day,
I looked at my dad, I said,
"Bullshit. That kid is cheating."
Going from the friend role
to the manager role, it's weird at times.
First couple years, it was new to us,
but we've gotten
a really good system down now
to where we can go ahead
and still have fun, but at the same time,
get serious and talk business.
A lot of the world needs to
understand that this is probably the most,
if not one of the most, pressured athletes
in all of sports history.
And I-I'll go to my...
my grave saying that.
You know, Bubba Wallace
is obviously in a unique space.
You know, even more unique
than the space that Tiger was in in golf.
While in golf,
there's sort of an implicit,
"We don't have Black people here,"
NASCAR is so associated with the South
and also associated
with a type of Southerner.
And you look at the Confederate flag
and the iconography.
He's surrounded by people who are
from the same part of the world as him,
but not the same as him.
This whole time,
I wanted to focus on my career.
I'm just always racing, racing, racing.
That was it.
You know, I never watched the news.
...demanding justice
for the killing of Trayvon Martin.
...Philando Castile...
...teenager was shot and killed
in Ferguson, Missouri.
- No peace!
- I didn't speak out.
- ...charged in the death of Freddie Gray.
- ...investigate the death...
...was shot by an officer,
37-year-old Alton Sterling...
I don't wanna pay attention.
I need to focus on racing.
For the longest time, that was true.
Like, I was selfish, you know?
And then the 2020 season happened.
Our goal was to be
the first major sport back, and we were.
It's been unique today.
NASCAR had all the protocols laid out
to safely get the teams in here.
Temperature checks,
social distancing, masks on,
everybody following
the rules very closely.
After a 71-day hiatus,
we raced at Darlington, South Carolina,
on May 17th.
Obviously, with no fans.
We know how many tickets
were sold for today's race. Zero.
The fans are not yet allowed back.
Without fans, you're pulling in,
and there's no traffic,
there's no people walking around.
Green flag! NASCAR is back!
We were already dealing
with the devastation of COVID.
And then... a problem
that has always existed in America comes,
not just bubbling to the surface,
it came just boiling to the surface.
- I'm sorry.
- Stay in the car.
- Let me see your other hand.
- I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
- Please, Officer. I didn't do nothing.
- Both hands!
Put your fucking hands up now!
Let me see your other hand.
- Please don't shoot me.
- I'm not shooting you.
- Please, man. I just lost my mom.
- 320, we're taking one out.
- Step out and face away.
- Man...
With George Floyd,
I'm sitting there watching the videos,
everything that had happened on TV.
George Floyd was a man,
a Black man in his forties
who died at the hands
of Minneapolis Police last night.
I was crying,
watching him say, "I can't breathe,"
and then when he called out his mama,
it was just so...
It... It... It hurt.
So, I remember getting my phone,
and I text Bubba,
and I was just crying as I sent the text,
and he never responded.
I'm not a person to...
talk about things.
I bottle it up,
and it just builds and builds and builds,
and then it... explodes.
And, you know,
I was at a point where it's like,
you know... I need to say something.
How have you processed
everything that has kinda transpired
throughout the course of the last week?
I don't know if you can
really truly process it.
I never knew the impact of that text
until he did an interview
and they had asked
a question about his mom.
How much do you weigh in
with your family and... and your mom?
I know she's
an important dynamic in your life.
And Bub's like,
"Well, you know, speaking of my mom,
she sent me a text."
He said, "Let me read it to you."
My mom said, "Good morning."
"I pray as a mom of a Black son
I never have to hear
you crying out, 'I can't breathe.'"
"I love you, Bubba,
and your life matters to me."
So...
Bubba was born
in Mobile, Alabama, in 1993.
He was just two when we moved here
to Concord, North Carolina.
We had moved into a subdivision.
So, Bubba was always running around.
He wasn't a homebody. He was always out
and about, exploring the neighborhood.
Me and Bubba are five years apart.
So, growing up, we were pretty close.
He is your goofy kid. He's a daredevil,
really humble, down-to-earth.
He loves to play jokes.
My sister called me "Bubba"
since the day I was born,
and it stuck.
My sister played basketball, then it was
me and my dad at the racetrack.
His dad wanted to make sure
he'd be able to run up there
with the best of them.
So he did not hold back on what he spent
to make sure
that Bubba was able to compete.
Being in an interracial marriage
was not common, um, during the early '90s.
And I even found myself,
when I would see couples like me,
I found myself staring at them,
because you just didn't see that
that often.
My family, both sides have always
treated me with love, I felt like.
Everybody loves kids,
no matter what they look like.
Our thing was always,
"You get the best of both worlds."
You know that old phrase,
"We don't see color"?
We didn't put emphasis on Black or white.
He never was one of those that was
struggling with his true identity.
If he was with Black friends,
he got along with Black friends.
If he was with white friends,
he got along with white friends.
Bubba just got along with everybody,
so I don't think it really affected him
in any, you know, type of way.
Bubba looks at it as,
"When we put those race helmets on,
you don't know what color I am."
"We're just race car drivers."
And that's really all Bubba really
wants to do is race, drive, and win.
The Daytona 500
is our sport's biggest race.
It's our Super Bowl.
It's like a homecoming for everybody,
the first race of the year,
getting everybody back together again.
When you start a team,
I think to have long-term success,
a lot of that
revolves around your personnel,
and I chose Wheels for good reason.
I'm Mike Wheeler,
crew chief for the Number 23 car
as well as competition director
for 23XI racing.
My nickname is "Wheels."
I've been called "Wheels" for a long time.
He was someone I've worked with
throughout my entire career
up until the last two years.
I was his engineer
for about a decade on the Cup side
and his crew chief
on the Cup side for three seasons.
So what I do here is kinda like
the head coach in football
or the manager for the baseball team.
You deal with the driver, make the final
decisions at the race track,
be on the radio,
making the final strategy calls.
Have a lot of guys underneath you,
both mechanical and engineering side,
but you give the final decisions
for a lot of the stuff.
Before Daytona, you're still trying to
dot all the I's and cross all the T's
to make sure you do it right.
That's never an easy process.
I wanna give the driver confidence
to race hard from the beginning.
But until you're at the track,
you never know how fast you'll be.
That is Bubba Wallace.
The first time the new 23XI team
has been on track.
And look
who he's following right now.
The teammate from the Toyota camp,
but car owner Denny Hamlin also.
Manufacturer relationships really
started ramping up around 2015 to 2016.
A lot of what steers the speed of your car
comes from those manufacturers,
and that's becoming more and more shared
through organizations
that run the same cars.
These five Toyotas
are putting some great times together.
We look at 23XI and Joe Gibbs Racing
as a Toyota team.
We go to these race tracks
and work together as teammates
because of the Toyota relationship
that we have.
When we're together, we've got
the four drivers from Joe Gibbs Racing
and then the fifth driver
from 23XI with Bubba.
Bubba Wallace
has the fastest lap,
and, yes, he was in the draft
when that happened.
He'll have bragging rights this evening.
Our 23 car was super fast.
I didn't expect us to be top of the board,
but I was like, "Hey, that's good."
Creating headlines already.
Michael Jordan
will see that. First person they'll text.
We all wanna win
and for him to perform well.
Bubba's got a lot of weight
on his shoulders.
I'd say from my standpoint,
I try not to put anymore pressure on him.
You know, obviously, who Bubba is
is a separate entity
from being just a normal race car driver.
My name is Ty Dillon.
I've been racing full-time
in the NASCAR series since I was 19.
I just turned 29 this year.
I have a full family of racing history.
My grandfather is Richard Childress,
known as RCR,
famously for owning Dale Earnhardt's car
that won a bunch of championships.
My dad raced all the way up
into what is now the Xfinity Series.
And then my brother, Austin,
is currently in the Cup Series,
and I get to race against him
on the weekends. It's pretty cool.
I've known Ty
ever since we were ten and 11,
and Ty and I have been racing
against each other ever since then.
Last year, the protests
were starting to happen.
I remember sitting in bed with my wife
and watching the footage
and the hurt in people.
- Say his name!
- George Floyd!
As a white male growing up
in a predominately white sport,
I couldn't act
like I knew what that felt like,
but I knew I could listen.
No justice! No Peace!
No justice! No peace!
No justice! No peace!
The first person
I really knew and grew up with
who was in a similar situation
but is Black was Bubba.
I got a text from Ty,
and it was just like,
"What do you think about doing an
Instagram live to share your experiences?"
And I put my phone down. I was like, "No."
We want convictions, not arrests!
I sat there and thought about it.
And I was like, "Ah! Why not? Let's go."
- Yo.
- Yo.
What's up?
What up, homie?
"So, what are your experiences?"
And I told him.
He was dumbfounded.
I get... I get stuff all the time.
"I'm only here because I'm Black."
"If it wasn't for the diversity program,
I wouldn't be here."
It's every day. It's every day
on my... on my mentions that, uh...
that I am here because I'm Black.
The first time that Bub really had
a run-in with, let's say the N-word,
was at one of the local tracks.
And Bub came over
and asked us, "What is that word?"
Because it was never used here.
You know, my way of explaining it
was just somebody being ignorant.
Um, it was a... a negative word
used against Black people.
His dad was very irate.
Profanity was thrown around,
threats were thrown around.
Out of 20 times I've been pulled over,
I've only gotten three tickets.
Thank you. I will take that.
But I got pulled over a year ago
driving a Lexus, nice car.
Um...
And he's like, "Is this your car?"
I said, "Yep."
He said, "Can you afford this car?"
Oh, my gosh.
And I said, I said, "Yes, sir, I can,"
with an attitude.
I could've said, "And I can afford one
for you and every person in your family,"
but I didn't, you know?
Because who knows what would happen then.
But, outside the racetrack,
you know, I deal with that stuff.
It... brings back memories of...
I had a nephew, 18 years old,
that was shot and killed
by a police officer in 2003.
Sean went out to a club
in Knoxville, Tennessee that night,
and, apparently,
went to Weigel's, a gas station,
and how we would do,
played loud music after the club.
And the clerk...
happened to be white.
Seeing a bunch of Black folk
outside having a good time.
Started to get nervous.
Cops come.
I guess he asked
for Sean and his friend
to turn down the music or whatever,
and when Sean gets in trouble,
he always calls his mom or my auntie
to let her know.
And, um, in his attempt,
I guess, to call his mom
is when the shot was fired into his chest.
And from there, they rushed him
to the hospital, and he died.
And that was it.
I often asked my mom
what happened.
I don't know why I kept asking.
My family relives it every time
that there is a Black person killed,
you know, by a police officer.
We relive it just like the families
that are currently living it.
We witnessed today
a moving service for George Floyd.
I never knew those stories, um,
that had happened to you.
I figured his life was like mine.
He went to the racetrack.
And to hear those stories
and to think about, like...
I never thought twice about dealing with
those things in my racing career.
That's the pain I'm seeing on TV.
That's... that's the hurt
I'm seeing in so many people, um,
that, maybe, I never understood.
Yeah.
Like, "I've known Bubba my whole life.
There ain't no way that could happen."
It happens.
There's a lot of stress just going on,
emotionally, personally,
with everything
he was having to deal with,
and I think he does a great job
of, um, compartmentalizing things
and being able to go race hard
every weekend, and he's right there at it.
I think we got shuffled
to the back through some rain-flag cycles.
We had a really fast...
The Duels set your
starting position for the Daytona 500.
So, you have to race
for your qualifying spot
and your starting spot in the Daytona 500.
Ready to roll.
Uh, I know MJ's either in his bus
or he's up there watching,
so he's here.
Any extra pressure
since the boss is here tonight?
- Nah. Pressure is all good.
- Good luck.
- Got me on radio 2?
- 10-4, I got you on 2.
Freddie is the guy in my ear
for... 11 years now.
Might take
a couple races to get used to my ritual
here in a second.
What's that mean?
We say the same stuff
every race.
My job is to keep him safe,
tell him where the cars are around him.
The best way I can relate is the eyes
for a driver while he's in the car.
All right, brother.
Sixty laps. Six-zero.
Just be smart, man. You know, fast car.
Take care of it. We want to race
this one on Sunday. Let's go to work.
Yes, sir!
3's coming up top.
Just you and him.
And Bubba Wallace
goes to the lead.
I wasn't in it.
I had already qualified.
So, it was kind of the first race
in which I got to go out and watch.
And from my standpoint
sitting up in the suite with Jordan,
I was looking at a lot of his moves,
and I was just thinking,
"He's making the right moves."
I mean, there was maybe
one or two times where I thought,
"Ah, maybe you shouldn't go to that line."
Manage your gap.
He's gonna split you. Middle, middle.
That's gonna be tough
on Bubba Wallace. Gonna go way back here.
When the inside lane
started coming, didn't block that route.
You gotta be decisive.
Wallace falls back to 14.
Biggest thing
is getting respect.
Show them you belong, you have a fast car.
Took a few years getting there.
10-4 on that.
Just two of 'em left
in the middle.
Thing's got speed.
We've seen speed out of that car all week.
Coming to the
cross flags halfway, 30 laps complete,
but yet we have that
all-important pit stop to come.
- It's all about Pit Road for us.
- Two tires to finish?
Yeah.
I'm good with that.
So, in a duel,
where the race is super short...
Green page, here. One red.
...you want to be on Pit Lane
as short as possible.
Pit Road speed starting.
The less amount of time,
the further it's gonna put you in front.
Ten away.
Stop, five, three, two, one.
Race, race, race, race, race.
Good right there.
Bubba's got work to do
in that Toyota to get back to the front.
All right, 20 to go here.
Big run coming on the
outside with the Toyotas. All lined up.
How'd they all
get together again?
Our car's pretty good,
both lanes.
Looks good out there.
They know we're here.
I tell you what,
Bubba Wallace, I'm impressed.
He's been aggressive,
but he's also been patient enough
to find his way back to the front.
Be aggressive.
See if we can decide this.
There's something about Daytona.
I'm telling you,
when it gets down to the end,
you feel it in that race car.
I know we want to win,
but got a hot rod,
make sure we're racing it on Sunday.
- Here's Smithley. Two!
- Oh no!
Smithley got into Keselowski.
Wreck behind you.
- Yellow.
- Gragson, in the wall.
So is the 24, Byron.
Chastain.
And that's a front row starting car, guys.
- Not anymore.
- Nope.
Take what you can get.
Not a lot of strong cars left. A few left.
Copy that.
Ready.
Three Toyotas got lined up.
- That worked out.
- Perfect. Textbook.
There's gonna be a run coming
on the outside.
On you tight.
Watch the bottom. There you go.
There's the white flag.
One to go.
They're running hard to get a run.
Now tight on you.
Get tight on this 3.
The 3 of Austin Dillon's
there to second, but...
Oh, I think give this to Martin Truex Jr.
Those guys behind
are gonna need a lot of help.
- Two back are your help.
- Here's help from the 12.
There he is!
Truex tried to block Dillon,
and he got 3 widened.
How about the run by Bubba!
I remember all of us
standing up.
And, of course, Michael,
he likes to yell play-by-play.
I remember saying, "Gotta be kidding me.
We're gonna win our first race?"
Gonna have to get up
and block 'em.
Top. Watch your bottom.
Dillon to the bottom.
- Here they come, racing to the line!
- Oh!
It is Dillon!
- Power move there.
- That's how we do it!
Fuck!
Yeah.
You got a good car
for Sunday.
What a performance
by Bubba, first race with this team.
You came that close to winning it.
What're you gonna take away
from this performance?
Lot of mistakes.
Um...
Good debut,
but nothing to be happy about.
I know I got a lot to learn here,
but all in all, it was a good night,
but I got some learning to do.
Great result for that
brand-new race team and Bubba Wallace.
Car's still straight.
A little damage, but we'll be all right.
Car's strong.
I think the field knows we're here,
so that's a big deal.
We'll get Bubba some experience and
confidence and give 'em hell on Sunday.
Sorry, dawg.
When that happens, I'm like, "Fuck,"
instead of being like,
"Okay, what do I need to block next?"
I go for that "fuck" moment,
"That's too late."
But, um...
Fuck, that's hard to swallow.
- Fuck.
- Racing, man. Ha!
- No justice!
- No peace!
No justice!
No peace!
- No justice!
- No peace!
- Black lives matter!
- Black lives matter!
We've been to come-to-Jesus moments
when it comes to race in this country,
but this one was different.
It was touching everything.
Politics, sports, entertainment, culture.
It was everywhere, and it was unavoidable.
I really believe that, for many Americans,
they were watching the news,
trying to figure out COVID,
watching the death tolls go up.
And the news was like,
"Hold on. We have a bigger story."
And it was George Floyd being killed.
I think for a lot of white folks,
it was the first time they ever saw
a Black man being killed
by a police officer.
And so their reaction was very big,
and a lot of Black people
were like, "Yeah, this is bad,
but it's not the first one."
America's largest police force is facing
a serious controversy over a viral video.
My name is Gwen Carr.
I am the mother of Eric Garner.
He was my eldest son.
And he was the love of my life.
43-year-old Eric Garner
confronted by two plainclothes officers
for allegedly peddling illegal cigarettes.
I didn't do nothing. What did I do?
He was surrounded by cops.
They thought they needed to take him down,
and one cop put a choke hold
that I think is now illegal on him,
and as he was dying,
he said, "I can't breathe."
Garner was ultimately heard
saying, "I can't breathe," 11 times.
"I can't breathe."
The phrase itself is just...
It's just really...
It's just jarring.
It's just jarring.
It's devastating.
It's... It's a lot of things.
We want justice!
We want justice! We want justice!
The phrase, "I can't breathe,"
embedded in that phrase is the hope
that they will see you as a human.
'Cause what you're saying is,
"I know you're arresting me,
but right now you're killing me,"
which is the same thing George Floyd said.
Please, I can't breathe.
Please, man, I can't breathe.
When I seen what happened
to George Floyd,
it's like an... an echo,
an echo from the grave.
I can't breathe!
I can't breathe! I can't breathe!
But it did create a movement.
I can't breathe!
- Louder!
- I can't breathe! I can't breathe!
♪ How many mothers have to cry? ♪
♪ How many brothers gotta die? ♪
The protests went on and on,
and this is what we have to do.
♪ How many more times? ♪
♪ How many more marches? ♪
Don't take away our breath.
Do not take away our dignity.
♪ How many more lives? ♪
♪ How many more times? ♪
Some people,
they know what's right,
but they're not gonna speak up
for what's right.
And if you think that this is wrong,
what they're doing,
that you should speak about it,
and you should be about it.
- ♪ How many more times? ♪
- ♪ How many times? ♪
♪ I'll leave you with that ♪
When there were
protests everywhere,
it was a few days
before the race at Atlanta,
and we had talked
about him doing something.
And he talked about wanting to wear
a Black Lives Matter shirt.
But I'm like,
"Oof. It's a sticky situation."
But you know what?
This is what needs to happen.
Ordered off Amazon, got here the next day,
and, uh, I'm like... "This is happening."
He was so dead set on making a statement.
I was gonna show up
with that shirt on.
I thought I was going to lose my ride.
To be honest with you.
So be it.
My team had called me.
And they were like, "Hey, we wanna
make sure everything's all good
with you and everything that's going on."
And I was like, "I wasn't gonna tell you,
but I'm letting you know
that I'm... I'm wearing this T-shirt,"
and they were like,
"Great. We support you. Let's do it."
And I was like...
"All right. Cool."
I have a responsibility.
It's automatic I have a responsibility,
because of my background,
my heritage, you know, my family.
African-American driver
Bubba Wallace wore an...
Wallace wore a T-shirt
with George Floyd's final words
and "Black Lives Matter" on it.
...taking a stand
for what he believes in.
It was a shock to me.
People were like, "Well, did you know
that this is how he was?"
Totally clue... "Not my son. No."
It was pure joy for me.
You know, it's pretty cool being able to
see your baby brother use his platform.
And this puts the ball in the court
of anybody who has a problem with this.
Because I don't wanna be
associated with you.
True colors are gonna come out.
'Cause of everything
that happened with George Floyd,
I was in a mix of emotions,
and when I saw Bubba with the shirt on,
it brought...
it brought tears to my eyes,
you know, and...
The...
Excuse me. I'm sorry.
To see Bubba take that stand
and people marching in the streets,
I had to do something, you know,
and taking a knee
was j-just a small gesture.
A lot of people thought
me taking the knee was radical.
I don't see it as radical.
Now, what Mr. Wallace Jr. did?
Now, that's radical.
The last place that you expect
acts of resistance is NASCAR.
And so to be a Black man,
to be in that NASCAR space,
and to wear a shirt
that says, "I can't breathe,"
he knew he was putting himself out there.
It's brave, it's brave.
NASCAR drivers.
NASCAR drivers speaking out against racism
in support of protests.
It was one of those moments
where it's hard not to react and think,
"Holy shit. Did he just do that?"
Because it felt like Bubba was putting
a humongous target on his back.
I went straight to Twitter
because I wanted to see
what the reaction was.
The response was mixed,
because there are people
who don't want to mix sports and society.
They want to go to sports as an escape.
And then there are a lot of people
who expect athletes to take a stand.
It's not easy to be placed in that role
of having to represent an entire race,
especially in that sport,
but, nevertheless,
Bubba Wallace understood the assignment.
Thank you so much for joining us.
I appreciate, uh, you joining us here.
And the thing
that's so admirable about Bubba
is that he kept amping up the stakes.
To have NASCAR come out...
What'll you do if someone
raises a Confederate flag?
What's the next action, Bubba?
I don't know.
Good question.
"What does NASCAR need to do?" "Oh!"
I have that answer right here.
Um, no one should feel uncomfortable
when they come to a NASCAR race.
So it starts with Confederate flags.
Get them out. There's no place for 'em.
Get rid of the Confederate flag.
- What's with the tire?
- It's loose.
Oh!
Round they go
in a hard crash!
Bubba grew up winning.
Now he's finishing in mid-pack.
That's pressure in itself.
You have Michael Jordan at the track,
and it's one of your worst tracks?
- It's gotta play in your mind a bit.
- We don't sign checks to losers.
What's going on?
Pull it together, bud.
I think you have demons in you,
and we need to get those addressed.
It was such a bad divorce.
My parents' life is falling apart.
I'm struggling. I need help.
Who are they to tell us
what flag we can fly?
It's one thing to say,
"Ban the Confederate flag,"
but it's another to go, "I'll drop the mic
and drive a Black Lives Matter car."
They found a noose
in Bubba's garage stall.
My heart sank.
Someone's trying to intimidate Bubba.
There needs to be
a full FBI investigation.
Donald Trump is challenging Bubba
to apologize.
Bubba's friends
and competitors
have closed ranks around him.
I'm fucking trying
not to lose my fucking cool.
Protests continue
over the death of Floyd.
You can't fuckin'
cut down when somebody's underneath you.
Oh, my God.
♪ Oh, oh my God ♪
♪ I got to make it to the end ♪
♪ It's far
All my life I've been counted out ♪
♪ All my life has been hard, hard
Hard, hard ♪
♪ And oh my God ♪
♪ I got to make it to the end, it's far ♪
♪ The sun is burning
And it's getting hot ♪
♪ Feeling so alone, alone ♪
♪ There's only one thing left to do ♪
♪ I put the pedal to the floor ♪
♪ I put the pedal to the floor ♪
♪ I put the pedal to the floor ♪
♪ I put the pedal to the... ♪
♪ They're coming for my head ♪
♪ Leaving just to see my shame ♪
♪ I think they want me dead, dead ♪
♪ But no, I won't give up ♪
♪ Oh no, I can't give in ♪
♪ In my journey
God you know I'm gonna win ♪
♪ They're coming for my head ♪
♪ Leaving just to see my shame ♪
♪ I think they want me dead, dead ♪
♪ But no, I won't give up ♪
♪ To know I can't give in ♪
♪ I'm in my journey
God, you know I'm gonna win ♪
♪ Gonna win, oh ♪