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Bubba Wallace claims he used to race with a mindset that 'world is against me and everybody’s out to get me'

Originally posted on FirstSportz | By Justin P Joy | Last updated 4/19/24

23XI Racing Bubba Wallace is one of the biggest stars ever of NASCAR. The two-time Cup race winer is the most successful African American racer in the sports’ history and is the poster boy of NASCAR’s diversity initiative. But being the face of such initiative came with a chip on his shoulder, and it affected his mindset as well.

Bubba Wallace ins known for being a very emotional person whose confidence most often dictates his results on the track. The current Toyota driver pointed out that he had a mindset of having a target on his back since his NASCAR debut and it took him over ten years to finally address this attitude and start doing something about it.

While talking to his friend and fellow driver Corey Lajoie, in the Stacking Pennies podcast, Wallace pointed out that he has been working on getting over mindset that he needs to prove people wrong this season. He has stopped proving people that he belongs in NASCAR which he believes can make him better.

There’s way more eyes for sure. At times, I’d say the biggest thing I’ve done in this year is ever since 2020, I was always like okay I got to prove to everybody that you know what, I belong here instead of just [being Bubba] and thinking that world is against me and everybody’s out to get me. There may be some, but I don’t need to invest my time into that anymore, you know, trying to prove everybody right. Bubba Wallace said via Stacking Pennies.

Bubba Wallace explains how he got out of the mindset

The No:23 Toyota driver pointed out that he understood the, the people that matters to him knows what is right and wrong, so he only have to care for them. He added that he kind of feels like he was chasing the wrong thing and being someone else for a longtime before having this realisation and now he feels more comfortable coming to races.

The people that matter, they know what’s right and what’s wrong. I think that’s helped me out a lot. just from the mental side of it. And then showing up to the race track and being more comfortable. I definitely lost touch with who I was for the last couple of years and chasing the wrong thing. You know now that you’ve kind of gotten back to being on the right track, things are starting to click. Bubba Wallace said.

The TRD driver did the right thing by changing his attitude as it has often been a factor that made take un-necessary risks during the race, which went onto ruin the race weekend for him. He can sure hope that the newly found confidence can help him to deliver better results on and off the track.

This article first appeared on FirstSportz and was syndicated with permission.

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