{"id":101880,"date":"2025-08-05T06:57:29","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T13:57:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=101880"},"modified":"2025-08-07T09:17:37","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T16:17:37","slug":"nascar-indianapolis-recap-bubba-shuts-down-larson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/nascar-indianapolis-recap-bubba-shuts-down-larson\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR Indianapolis Recap: Bubba Shuts Down Larson"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"101882\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/nascar-indianapolis-recap-bubba-shuts-down-larson\/wallace1\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/wallace1.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"1000,666\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"wallace1\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/wallace1-300x200.jpg\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/wallace1.jpg\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-101882\" src=\"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/wallace1.jpg\" alt=\"NASCAR Indianapolis Recap: Bubba Shuts Down Larson\" width=\"1000\" height=\"666\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/wallace1.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/wallace1-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/wallace1-768x511.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Bubba Wallace celebrates a feel-good win at the Brickyard.<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Love him or hate him, there&#8217;s no denying that <strong>Bubba Wallace<\/strong> is under more intense scrutiny than almost any other driver in the field. After a winless streak of over 100 races, the commentary on social media was brutal. Add the stress of a new crew chief, a new baby, as well as an intense court battle with the team he races for hanging in the balance, and it&#8217;s understandable why Wallace might have been more stressed out than usual.<\/p>\n<p>Bubba has never shied away from sharing his true feelings in interviews, whether he&#8217;s struggling with his car or his mental health. Some fans call him a crybaby; others admire his courage in talking about the sort of anxiety and self-doubt we&#8217;ve all dealt with before. He&#8217;s not all doom and gloom, though. He and his best friend <strong>Ryan Blaney<\/strong> share a lot of funny videos on social media, and Wallace genuinely seems like one of the more approachable drivers in the garage.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"NASCAR Cup Series 2025: The Brickyard 400 | EXTENDED HIGHLIGHTS | Motorsports on NBC\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4iGX_c35AUA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Still, let&#8217;s address the elephant in the room \u2013 the man has a lot of haters, and he silenced them in decisive fashion. Indianapolis Motor Speedway is one of the most hallowed halls in racing, and to win there is a major feather in any driver&#8217;s cap. Consider that Wallace beat <strong>Kyle Larson<\/strong>, widely considered to be one of the greatest oval racers of this or any era, and it&#8217;s clear to see that Wallace is a far better wheelman than anyone gives him credit for.<\/p>\n<p>After so many near misses at superspeedways, Wallace fought off strong charges from multiple lightning fast Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing cars. With under 20 laps to go, Wallace had checked out to a lead of over three seconds.<\/p>\n<p>Then the rain came.<\/p>\n<p>It wasn&#8217;t a long delay, but long enough for those seeds of self-doubt to germinate. When the cars returned to the track, Wallace shook it off and went wheel-to-wheel with Larson. Larson got a great restart, but couldn&#8217;t clear Wallace. Wallace managed to clear Larson, and we preparing to take the white flag when the caution flag waved yet again for a wreck mid-pack. They&#8217;d have to rack &#8217;em up again, and this time, Wallace was dangerously low on fuel.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Bubba Wallace Emotional Interview After Winning the Brickyard 400 | NASCAR on TNT\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/S1FzmkKNuBc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Regardless, he stayed out \u2013 and got a better restart this time. Despite the fuel anxiety, Wallace charged to the finish, breaking his winless streak at the Brickyard. As it turns out, he had plenty of fuel left for a victory lap and some truly raucous burnouts, and it seemed like every other driver in the field came over to congratulate him when he finally made it to victory lane. Wallace may not be popular with all race fans, but it&#8217;s clear that he&#8217;s popular in the garage. After the victory lane festivities, Wallace granted <strong>Dale Earnhardt Jr.<\/strong> and the TNT Sports crew an emotional postrace interview that&#8217;s well worth watching. The series is headed to Iowa Speedway this week, and we&#8217;re eager to see if Hendrick, Gibbs, and 23XI remain major players at this short track.<\/p>\n<p><em>Photo: Getty Images<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>Bubba Wallace celebrates a feel-good win at the Brickyard.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":101882,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3424,3470],"tags":[127,41],"class_list":["post-101880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","category-news","tag-nascar","tag-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/wallace1.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-qve","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101880"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101920,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101880\/revisions\/101920"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}