Darrell Wallace Jr. experienced highs and lows during the NASCAR race weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee that culminated in the running of the Food City 500. He led six laps late in the race Monday. After several rain postponements and interruptions he became the first African-American driver to lead laps in a NASCAR premier-series race since Wendell Scott in Jacksonville, Florida in 1963. Wallace wound up 16th, one lap down, at the checkered flag, but the finish wasn’t the crappiest part of Wallace’s Bristol weekend. That came prior to driver introductions Sunday when he had to climb over his toilet to get out of his motorhome.
“The door wouldn’t open, so I had to come out through the crapper,” Wallace told Michael Waltrip during pre-race TV coverage on Fox
Sports. NASCAR later tweeted the exchange.
An issue with the deadbolt lock on the front door of Wallace’s motorhome parked on the Bristol Motor Speedway property prevented Wallace from getting out through his main door Sunday, Wallace explained in a Fox Sports interview prior to Monday’s resumption of the race.
But fellow-driver Clint Bowyer, never one to shy away from a good joke, suggested Wallace, himself, not the deadbolt was to blame in his TV interview.
With the race finally concluded, Wallace was back on the bus, expressing his frustrations of a lap-down race finish after leading laps.
Here’s to a better finish at Richmond Raceway in Virginia and an easier, normal exit from the motorhome.