Bubba Wallace had a good outing on Sunday All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro Speedway, finishing second behind Kyle Larson. Unfortunately, it wasn’t his performance that fans were talking about after the race, but the middle finger he subtly flipped in his post-race interview on national television.
This week, during an appearance on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, Corey LaJoie spoke about the incident and admitted that flipping the bird was not unusual for the 23XI Racing driver, offering details on how the pair regularly display the hand gesture towards each other during races, and noting a time at Michigan that might worry NASCAR officials not because it’s obscene, but because it’s dangerous.
Bubba Wallace flips a bird in North Wilkesboro
Just minutes after scoring his career-best finish in an All-Star Race, Bubba Wallace visited Fox’s Jamie Little on pit road, who opened the questions by asking the 29-year-old driver if he would have been possible to catch up. A Super-fast Kyle Larson.
“I don’t know. I think we needed the louvers and all that cheating they have there,” Wallace said, followed by a chuckle. “No, his ability throughout the race. He can attack hard and have something at the end.
While Wallace’s comments about the “cheated” plays are noteworthy, it’s not what everyone was talking about after the race. Instead, the focus was on the middle finger that the conductor quickly threw at the start of Little’s first question.
It was later reported that the driver was waving to a team PR executive off-camera.
Corey LaJoie addresses moving and makes a surprising admission
Unsurprisingly, Bubba Wallace flipping the bird was a hot topic of discussion throughout the week on social media and on radio talk shows. Corey LaJoie joined the conversation during an appearance on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio and said he and the 23XI Racing driver regularly wave at each other.
“No one shows their emotions, good or bad, as often or as clearly as Bubba, that’s why some people hate him. That’s why some people love him,” LaJoie said. “I love that guy, right? I’d probably take a bullet in, I don’t know, maybe in the meat of my leg for him. Maybe not the chest, but I’d take a bullet for him.
“He and I, if we were running, if we were having a comparable day, we would throw the bird at each other at least four or five times. It’s actually sometimes a kind of competition to see who can hold out their middle finger the longest. He has a record of two laps with his bird out the window in Michigan, so I still haven’t been able to beat that time with one hand on the wheel.
“So Bubba just came out second in the All Star race, right? He feels good. He’s pumped up like you know, like Bubba, you can just see him lighter after a positive day. And he’s like, you know, bubbly and he’s got the right comments. The first thing he said when Jamie shoved the mic in his face like he had the blinds or something. He says it as a joke, but that’s just Bubba, dude. Let him be him and being him is casting what he probably considers a low-key bird even if it’s on national television. People will realize it. Then you know you live and learn.
Wallace regularly makes fun of other drivers
Corey LaJoie’s Bird Adventures with Bubba Wallace, while surprising, is not new. Daniel Suarez spoke about similar experiences with the 23XI Racing driver.
“Every time I race against him, I give him the finger,” Suarez said in a 2021 survey of Cup Series drivers in answering the question of which driver has been the most fun to race against this year. “We’re good friends, and a few years ago we had a fight because he gave me the finger, and then it became a joke after that. And every time we see each other on the circuit, we give each other the finger, that’s for sure. »
Suarez acknowledged that it was simply a friendly gesture towards each other. He didn’t talk about longer bird competitions with the 23XI Racing driver. However, after LaJoie’s comments, NASCAR might want to have that conversation and at least address the issue from a safety perspective.
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