25 May 2023 , 21:29
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NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Jr has defended Bubba Wallace, saying the sport's only African-American driver in the Cup series "puts up with more s*** than anybody deserves".
In a more recent incident involving 23XI Racing ace Wallace, his team radio channel was apparently hacked at last weekend's All-Star race, and an unknown person told the NASCAR driver to "Go back to where you came from", before adding a non-racial expletive. NASCAR has opened an investigation into the matter.
"I will tell you, man, Bubba Wallace puts up with more s*** than anybody deserves," Chevrolet Camaro-driving Earnhardt Jr said when talking about Wallace's overall treatment at NASCAR races.
As well as the radio hack, Wallace has had to put up with boos, which has left rival drivers shocked. "I was at Darlington a couple weeks ago," Earnhardt Jr said on The Dale Jr. Download. "We’re on this stage, and it’s the 75 greatest drivers all lined up. Outside of me, these are the greatest drivers that have been involved in the sport. All distinguished, of varying ages, everybody’s there to have this great experience. And the drivers are being introduced and walking by us, shaking our hand one after the other. And it’s this moment where everybody, you would think that it would be a moment where you’d behave.
"And there’s this one guy at the rail, the rail of the fans that are down on the front straightaway, there’s one guy at the rail. Everybody for the most part is just cheering. There’s a couple, you know they give a couple people a hard time, Denny (Hamlin) and all that. A smattering of boos. Nothing crazy.
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"But Bubba gets introduced and walks across the stage and there’s this guy right in front of me and Carl Edwards and Matt Kenseth and everyone else there, screaming at the top of his lungs, ‘Go home! Go home! Go home!’ over and over, as loud as he could.
Dale Earnhardt Jr has issued a strong response to Bubba Wallace's treatment in NASCAR (Getty)"And it was so obnoxious. I really wanted to jump down there and go, ‘Hey, could you stop? Is this really what you want to do right in this moment? Is this how you want to behave right now in front of all these incredible people that you’re standing in front of? Richard Petty and all these legends, you’re going to be acting this way?’
"And I thought man, that’s one day in Bubba’s life. And I was thinking, I know there’s people out there who have hated Kyle Busch and hated other drivers, and they probably have said some nasty things. But it just made me really disappointed."
On the track, Wallace is performing well, recording two top-five finishes over the weekend in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series and in the Cup Series All-Star Race. Wallace is 15th in points and is projected to make the Play-Offs.