Darrell Wallace Jr. makes NASCAR history with win

by LP Green, II

Darrell Wallace Jr. is the second African-American driver to win a NASCAR national series race.

He hopes his triumph is well worth the wait, considering the sport is traditionally filled with all white drivers, and has only been diversified once before in its first 65 years of existence.

“I want to be a role model and inspiration to the younger kids and just change the sport as a whole and for the better, and winning helps everything,” Wallace, 20, said. “I think that’ll help kind of pave its own way there and hopefully get my name out there even more. That’s what I’ve been trying to do is to get my name out there to keep pushing (and) striving for kids younger than me to get in the sport.”

Wallace, a NASCAR Drive for Diversity program graduate, led the final 50 laps of Saturday’s Kroger 200 Camping World Truck Series race at Martinsville Speedway, and became the first African-American winner in a NASCAR national series since Wendell Scott’s victory in Jacksonville, Fla. on Dec. 1, 1963.

The NASCAR Drive for Diversity program was created in 2004 to assist multicultural and female drivers advance from the grass-roots series.

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