Bubba Wallace is a good dude. I have been fortunate to have been able to spend some time with him at the NHRA races over the years and the fact that he’s got a ride now is awesome. Last weekend at Pomona was not one of his best days and it all came down to one thing. Brakes. He didn’t have any.
Pocono is not exactly the most exciting course in the world to watch racing on but when someone is hauling 200+ mph worth of ass and gets ready to set up for turn one and the break pedal goes all wet noodle on them, things get real in a hurry. Whether it was the soft walls, Bubba’s efforts to scrub speed and slide the car in or what, he was able to walk away this potentially bon crushing impact.
How serious was this one? Wallace told reporters the other day that in the midst of the incident he did not know if he was going to live or die. That’s pretty serious stuff and the fact that we see big crashes and explosions each week in motorsports and people walk away gives us the sense that they always walk away…they don’t.
On a podcast, Wallace said this:
“You literally think, ‘Am I gonna die? Am I gonna get knocked out?’ Because the way I was heading for the fence was head-on straight. …
“I thought I was going to hit head-on. My facial expression, I wish you could have seen it. I told (my girlfriend) Amanda, ‘Yeah, you jumped around the corner and scared the hell out of me, and I’m like, “Oooh!”‘ This one was like petrified. I didn’t know if I was going to die or not.”
The fact that he had that long to think about what was going to happen should send a shiver down your spine. It sure did ours.
NHRA Pomona??????