iNSIDE SCOOP: Historic Victory

Lost in the building battle atop the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup standings last weekend was the fact that Darrell Wallace Jr. won the Truck race the day before.

Long thought of as one of the drivers who would make some noise in the future and one of the sports upcoming stars, Wallace initially wasn’t thinking in terms of history when he got to Victory Lane…which is what Martinsville Speedway officials call the front stretch when the cars quit racing.

Darrell Wallace Jr. earned the first victory for an African-American driver in a NASCAR national touring series event since December, 1963. Yep, almost 50 years ago, Wendell Scott won a race in Jacksonville, Fla., and Wallace became the first man to do it since that day.

He was flabbergasted.

"And then the remark and everything starts flowing in after about the history and the record set and Wendell Scott and all of it just came rushing after, and I had no idea," Wallace said Sunday in the post-race hoopla. 

The day after, however, it really hit home. Wallace was asked to appear on morning news (entertainment, really) shows and do radio bits and so on. That’s big noise for a driver winning a Camping World Truck Series race, which is not to slight the series in any way, but it’s not the Cup Series, if you know what I mean.

A well-deserved victory it was, as Martinsville is hard to master. You have to be tough as nails and on your game to win there, and Wallace was all of that. He made Scott's family happy too.

"When the checkered flag dropped, I heard a big boom from heaven, and my daddy said, 'Hell yeah!'" said Franklin Scott, a son of the racing pioneer who died in 1990 at the youthful age of 66.

The Scott family has been following Wallace's career since 2008.

Franklin Scott's brother, Wendell Jr., began mentoring Wallace through his involvement with NASCAR's diversity program, according to an AP report. Wendell Jr. watched the then-15-year-old Wallace start second, run there all night long and finish there in a race in Callaway. He kept watching.

"My brother and I were texting back and forth, so we were saying, 'Oh, Lord. Watch so and so, watch so and so,' " Wendell Jr. told AP. “He did a Kyle Busch restart. It was one of the most magnificent starts to win a race I've ever seen, and anybody that saw that race knows that this young man is only just begun."

It’s a good thing, Wallace winning, and for many reasons. First, it is good to add diversity to the sport, and second, it shows you that the young man has talent and is on his way up. Third, and perhaps most important, it will hopefully put his talent at the forefront, not the fact that he is African-American, and that talent will allow him to rise as far as it takes him. 

"I try to do my best, with all respect, (but) you've got to understand that I've still got to go out there and perform, and I've got to think about what I've got to do on track to get me back in victory lane," he said.

Congratulations to Bubba for winning at Martinsville and for honoring Wendell Scott’s achievements. The future is bright for Wallace, and he can get on about writing his own chapter as a racing driver.