Bubba Wallace was far from happy with the way his Cup outing at Watkins Glen went last Sunday. Despite being in contention for the Top 10 throughout the race, a late incident disrupted the 23XI Racing driver's run, making him run on emotions.

Wallace's emotional outburst quickly became a talking point as the 23XI Racing star had a serious interaction with Christopher Bell after the race. However, it wasn't an incident with Bell that triggered that.

At Dover on Friday, Bubba Wallace explained the story leading to the seeming confrontation on pit road.

"I got wiped out by the 42 (John Hunter Nemechek)," Wallace said. "I don't know if TV caught that. We were in potential for a top-10, top-12 day. I got wiped out following 45 (Tyler Reddick). And when I put so much freaking effort into becoming a better road course racer … I joke with you guys that I suck, and I don’t give a damn about road courses; I really do. It’s a competitive nature, and I push hard every time we get into the car, and at that point in the race, man, everything was clicking."

Nemechek spinning Wallace around with eight laps to go in the race completely threw him off. That irate state of mind led him to battle every other driver hard. He added, saying:

"When that happens, you see freaking red, and you don’t care who is out there. You don’t care if your wife and kids are out on the racetrack, you are going to race the dog shit out of them because you had everything ripped away from you.

"(Herbst) was in that mix, I raced the shit out of him. (Bell) was in the mix, I raced the shit out of him. Whoever else was in that mix, I didn’t care just because my race was ruined 30 seconds beforehand."

Bubba Wallace was battling an unstable car, and the race-destroying incident didn't help. Christopher Bell had to bear the brunt of it. But it didn't end sourly.

"I reached out to him afterward, and we talked it out like professionals," Wallace added. In the end, the 32-year-old 23 XI Racing driver came home in 29th place, a steep drop from the Top ten.

Bubba Wallace unhappy with media headlines after Watkins Glen

Because Bubba Wallace and Christopher Bell didn't have any major incidents at Watkins Glen, it was hard to decode the reason behind their post-race conversation on pit road. Many theories were floated in the media, and Wallace slammed the headlines ahead of the All-Star race this weekend.

Criticising them during the media day on Friday, Wallace said, "You all had it figured out, but every single one of y'all m************ were wrong."

It was natural for Bubba Wallace to lose his calm, given the misfortune at Watkins Glen. However, reacting animatedly on pit road amid the cameras surely had its downside, something Wallace experienced.

With that said, the Watkins Glen race is now in the past, and Bubba Wallace and his team need to focus on this week's race at Dover. It will be interesting to see if the #23 driver can redeem himself at the exhibition.

Read more at the RFK Racing Digest!

Written by

Sabyasachi Biswas

Edited by

Yask Kotak