Bubba Wallace will channel his inner Grimace for the NASCAR Cup Series race at Iowa Speedway on Sunday. 23XI Racing announced on Wednesday that Wallace’s 23 Toyota will have a paint scheme that will be all purple and will have the iconic McDonald’s character. Wallace will also have a firesuit that will be Grimace-themed.
The paint scheme for the car and firesuit is an example of Wallace’s strong partnership with McDonald’s. Wallace talked about the partnership during a 2021 interview with PopCulture.com.
“They’ve stepped up in a huge way this year in becoming one of the founding partners of our race team at 23XI racing and then also for me to be able to sign on as a mentor for the Black and Positively Golden Mentorship,” Wallace said. “I’ve really had fun with that. Myself and Rajah Caruth, giving him some pointers, another fellow African-American youngster coming up through the sport, trying to make a name for himself. Giving him all my tips and tricks and words of wisdom to help him guide his way has been really cool and I appreciate McDonald’s being behind us and supporting both of us.”
Wallace enters the Iowa race in a mini-slump. After finishing seventh at Darlington and 11th at Charlotte, Wallace earned a P21 finish at Gateway and P20 finish at Sonoma. He is in need of a win to solidfy his spot in the playoffs.
Bubba Wallace is a history-making NASCAR driver
Last year, Wallace clinched a playoff spot and finished 10th in the standings. He won a Cup Series race in 2021 and 2022, making him one of the most succesful Black drivers in NASCAR history.
“There’s way more eyes for sure,” Wallace said on the Stacking Pennies podcast in April. “At times, I’d say the biggest thing I’ve done in this year is ever since 2020, I was always like okay I got to prove to everybody that you know what, I belong here instead of just [being Bubba] and thinking that world is against me and everybody’s out to get me. There may be some, but I don’t need to invest my time into that anymore, you know, trying to prove everybody right.”
“The people that matter, they know what’s right and what’s wrong. I think that’s helped me out a lot. just from the mental side of it,” Wallace continued. “And then showing up to the race track and being more comfortable. I definitely lost touch with who I was for the last couple of years and chasing the wrong thing. You know now that you’ve kind of gotten back to being on the right track, things are starting to click.”
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