Bubba Wallace is more accepting of the penalty NASCAR issued to him on the final lap of the Cup Series race on Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway and has moved on to the rest of the regular season.
“I mean, kind of have to, right,” said Wallace to a media scrum on Saturday at North Wilkesboro Speedway. “I mean, it is what it is.”
Wallace was sent to the tail end of the lead lap after originally being scored second because race control determined he went below the out of bounds line to improve his position. Objectively, he did, but Wallace wanted to argue in real time that he ultimately did not improve his position.
“To me, I always thought it was gaining position, but no, it's gaining track position, which I totally did,” Wallace said. “So it is what it is. I thought they would care about the data that (showed) I tried to give it back but the damage was already done. So it’s unfortunate but here we are.”
Here is 13th in the standings and 55 points above the cutline, even though he stood to be 83 up leaving Atlanta. Wallace and crew chief Charles Denike went to the NASCAR hauler after the race to make their case but there wasn’t much of a defense.
“The damage was already done, so it didn't matter and that was unfortunate,” Wallace said.
Does he agree with the spirit of the rule?
“I don't know,” Wallace said. “I've never really been kind of in that scenario. I've had a couple close calls but I will say as I made the move and seen where I was going to end up, I knew it was going to put everybody in a bad spot and that was unfortunate.
“I mean, at the end of the day, if (Ty Gibbs) didn't push me at the line, I would have finished third and I'm pretty sure they said that would not have been a penalty. So it's like, I don't know. I think NASCAR doesn't ever want to be put into a situation where they have to make the call and they always tell us to not put them in that situation and unfortunately, I put them there. So all in all, a rule is a rule (and I) crossed over the line. Oh, well.”
