Bubba Wallace finally got a close-hand look at the carousel—the section of Sonoma Raceway that restores the road course to 2.52 miles—but the experience didn’t come as soon as Wallace had anticipated.
On his first lap in practice on Friday, Wallace spun off the track in Turn 3 and returned to the racing surface red-faced.
“I didn’t even get a chance to look at it before I spun out,” Wallace said between practice sessions for Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race (3 p.m. ET on FS1, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). “I got out and went up Turn 3 and thought, ‘Man, these tires are cold,’ and I spun out.
“So now that’s now the top of the board for the most embarrassing moment, because we were just cruising around. (Corey) LaJoie was in front of me, and he hadn’t even fired off yet. (Michael) McDowell was behind me. We were just kind of cruising, putting stuff together, and the next thing you know, I was looking at the dirt. I was like, ‘All right. Here we go. We got it out of the way.’”
Wallace finally got through the entire course, but he was 31st fastest of 38 drivers in the first practice session.
He had a better time during the NASCAR off week when he and team owner Richard Petty saw the St. Louis Blues hockey team during the recent run to the Stanley Cup. David Steward, chairman and founder of World Wide Technology, Inc. (one of Wallace’s primary sponsors), is part of the Blues ownership group.
“Whenever I was watching, it was a good time,” Wallace said of his hockey experience. “It’s way too fast for me, but, yeah, a good time… The crowd was involved from start to finish, and that was pretty cool, the atmosphere there.
“Although the two games I went to were two losses, so I don’t know if I’m allowed back at a Blues game, but they ended up pulling it off.”
Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.
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