Bubba Wallace had a clear view out his windshield for a few brief moments before it all went sideways Sunday. In the final lap of the second overtime of the Geico 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, Wallace ended up turned by Ryan Blaney as the two fought for the lead.
It ended a strong day for a driver who’s found success at superspeedways, including scoring his first win at Talladega.
This run also came in front of Wallace’s high-profile team owner Michael Jordan, who showed the emotion on his face throughout the race.
Blaney pushed Wallace to the lead around the outside of eventual-winner Kyle Busch. As Blaney tried to take his own run, Wallace threw late blocks low and then high, which ultimately upset his already-loose car and sent him around and into the field.
“Just pulled a late block. Close, close, close block,” Wallace told media after being released from the infield care center, “and it just sent us around. Not the 12 [of Blaney]’s fault.”
“It was our best plate race that we’ve ever done, hats off to the 23 group. Hate it, but I caused that one. I thought it would play out a little bit different, but I thought the move would happen in the trioval.”
“When I saw the 12 I was pumped,” he added. “We work well together every superspeedway race. Not the 12’s fault at all.”
As for Blaney, he called it a product of the style of superspeedway racing, but said that Wallace was overaggressive with his late blocks.
“It’s just you get big runs and you take them when you can,” Blaney said, noting of the contact with Wallace, “I’m glad everyone’s okay, but in my mind you can’t make a triple move like that, a triple block.
“You can’t block three times, I don’t know, the runs are so big and as the leader Bubba’s trying to block, which is the right thing to do. But I think he kinda moved three times. I got to go somewhere. I hate for cars to get torn up and I hate for us to be so close to the win.”
“I’m not blaming anybody. It’s just hard racing at the end of this thing and unfortunate that cars got torn up and we missed out on another win,” Blaney concluded.
Ultimately, though Blaney continued on to a second-place finish while Wallace ended up 28th, neither driver got the win.
“The seas kind of parted there,” eventual winner Kyle Busch said. He was running third at the time of contact between the two.
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