Darrell Wallace Jr. driven to chase success, not history
CONCORD, N.C. — Darrell Wallace Jr. talks, walks and dresses casually, as if he isn't carrying the weight of a certain slice of sports history on his shoulders.
And, he says, he isn't.
Wallace, nicknamed Bubba, is a shining star from NASCAR's Drive for Diversity program — a leading candidate for a distinguished alumnus award. He has won in the Camping World Truck Series, will race full-time in the Xfinity Series this season and is projected to be in the Sprint Cup Series soon.
Son of a white father and black mother, Wallace, 21, could become the first African-American driver to win in the Cup series since Wendell Scott, inducted last month into the NASCAR Hall of Fame, won a race in Jacksonville, Fla., in 1963.
"I go out there and let my actions and effort speak," Wallace said. "I don't play that role of, 'Yeah, we're going to win this race, and we're leading the diversity race.'
"I go out there and have the same type of weekends as everybody else — bad ones, good ones, ones we win."
Wallace, a native of Alabama now living in a Huntersville, N.C., apartment while looking for his first house, hopes to establish himself on the next rung of the ladder this season. He has moved to Roush Fenway Racing from Joe Gibbs Racing and to the Xfinity Series from a successful run in the Camping World Truck Series.
Wallace won four times in the truck series last season, more than any other series regular. He finished third in points.
He signed a deal with RFR after the Gibbs team couldn't put together a sponsorship program to guarantee him a spot there for 2015. The plan at Roush is for Wallace to run the full Xfinity schedule, although the sponsor search continues. As it has for much of Wallace's young racing career.
Despite establishing himself as a strong threat on the national-series level and owning minority credentials that would benefit NASCAR with his continued success, Wallace has had issues attracting solid and consistent sponsorship.
"It's a never-ending process," said Wallace, but, he added, one that doesn't frustrate him.
"It could if you really thought about it," he said. "I've been in racing for 12 years and been trying to get sponsorship for 12 years. So I've had 12 years of practice. I have had some good sponsors coming through, like Toyota with JGR and Dollar General and Coca-Cola.
"Now we'll just go to Daytona (for the first race) and see what we have. Everybody here is working hard."
Team owner Jack Roush has raced other cars without full-time sponsorship, so finances probably won't prohibit Wallace from running the full Xfinity schedule.
Roush Fenway president Steve Newmark said Wallace's late move to RFR last fall complicated the sponsor search.
"This all came to us rather later, so the first order of business was to put a competitive team around him," Newmark said. "Now we've started to kick in sponsorship efforts. We're working with Fenway (Sports Group). We've seen a lot of interest. I'm confident at some point it will work, but it's always tough to sell in-season sponsorships because most companies already have their budgets locked."
For his part, Wallace says he has to step up — and with authority.
"Before, it was realistic just to get established in a series and get top fives and top 10s and good solid runs," he said. "But Chase (Elliott) is 18, and he won the (Xfinity) championship last year. Anything less than that is not acceptable. I consider myself just as good as him.
"We can go out and win as many races as he did and be consistent like he was. But you have to be smart about it. You can't make any bonehead moves. We have to put ourselves in the right spot at the right time and be there to capitalize."
And part of "being there," Wallace said, is racing smart.
"This is kind of like re-establishing myself all over again," he said. "I'm totally confident we can get multiple wins, but you have to be patient and let it come to you. There were plenty of races last year where I was patient at the beginning of the race but wound up after the middle part of the race on the hook.
"I'd be running up front and have a little mishap on pit road and be put back in the middle of the field. I'd be all flustered. The next thing you know, I'm running third but still pissed, and – pow! – a spinout. I definitely learned my lesson about that. I have to stay focused."
PHOTOS: In the driver's seat with Darrell Wallace Jr.