Source: Chris Graythen / Getty
NASCAR has had its share of Black drivers, a path laid expertly by the late Wendell Scott of Danville, Va. Darrell “Bubba” Wallace Jr. is continuing the tradition as one of NASCAR’s top-ranked racers and has just revealed that his No. 43 Chevrolet Camaro will feature a Black Lives Matter paint job in the wake of him asking for Confederate flags to be banned from the tracks.
Via social media, the Richard Petty Motorsports team that Wallace races for announced the new paint job scheme via a video interview that laid out the inspiration for the Black Lives Matter angle.
Wallace shared in the chat with RPM’s graphic designer Bradley Sisson that he was inspired by last week’s “Black Out Tuesday” and worked it out with the RPM team to get the paint job done.
“I think it’s going to speak volumes to what I stand for, but also what the initiative and what NASCAR, and the whole sport, is trying to push,” Wallace said.
The car’s paint job features two hands on the hood, one Black and one white, in a solidarity handshake that Wallace stated in the video chat was an important distinction to make.
NASCAR has done well in introducing diversity programs over the past few years in an attempt to cater to longstanding Black fans of car racing and to also add much-needed variety to the generally lily-white sport.
Wallace artfully noted that he hopes that the Black Lives Matter movement’s message gets heard clearly and explained that it doesn’t mean that other lives don’t matter but that Black lives matter too. He also added that all lives won’t matter until Black lives matter.
Check out the video conversation and images of the car below.
To watch tonight’s NASCAR Cup Series race, tune in to FS1 at 7PM ET.
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Photo: Getty
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