Alabama native Bubba Wallace has been leaving the streets in smoke ever since making history and becoming the first Black driver to win a NASCAR Cup Series race at the Talladega Superspeedway since 1963.
His new Netflix limited series, Race: Bubba Wallace, has finally dropped after much anticipation, released on Feb. 22.
In an interview with BET, Wallace describes how NASCAR has made some progress for inclusivity following the “sticky situation” created by his 2020 campaign to ban the confederate flag from the sport and after donning an “I Can’t Breathe” Black Lives Matter shirt. He says there was much more diversity and support in the crowd for him in a sport that doesn’t necessarily celebrate its athletes of color. The historic driver went on to remind fans that he will continue to represent in the spaces that he needs to, on and off the race track.
Race: Bubba Wallace will feature his 2021 season at NASCAR, taking viewers through his competition on Michael Jordan and Denny Hamlin’s 23XI racing team, as well as the moments he was vocal on issues of social justice, as previously reported. A victim himself to racial discrimination in the historically white sport, Wallace is said to be very candid in the series about the events leading to his championship win, and documenting the story through an honest lens.
Director of the docuseries, Erik Parker, who also co-directed the 2017 doc L.A. Burning: The Riots 25 Years Later, shared, “I absolutely wanted to tell this story in real time of history in the making, and I think we captured that, but it’s also a snapshot, you know, in the 2020 season, when Bubba spoke out about what was happening in NASCAR and on racial justice, social justice issues. We wanted to capture that moment.”
Race: Bubba Wallace is now streaming on Netflix.