In the closing laps of Sunday's Goodyear 400 NASCAR Cup Series race at Darlington Raceway, Team Penske's Ryan Blaney was rapidly chasing down 23XI Racing's Tyler Reddick.
Blaney was able to complete the pass off of turn two of the four-turn, 1.366-mile (2.198-kilometer) Darlington, South Carolina oval, with Reddick's No. 45 Toyota getting slightly into the wall behind him. He appeared to be well on his way to his first Darlington victory.
But then behind him, Hendrick Motorsports' Kyle Larson spun out, setting up an overtime finish.
Bubba Wallace foolishly blamed for Kyle Larson's second mistake
Joe Gibbs Racing's Denny Hamlin was running in third place at the time, and he emerged as the leader after the ensuing pit stops. He held on to win the race, giving him back-to-back wins for the first time since 2012.
Larson was running 167 laps down at the time, having also crashed on lap four at the exact same spot. And with Hamlin, team co-owner of 23XI Racing, running in third place, there were immediately fans who flocked to blame 23XI Racing's Bubba Wallace, who was running right behind Larson at the time, for intentionally wrecking Larson to manipulate the race.
As we all know, Larson is immune to certain forms of criticism from NASCAR fans. There has always been a laughable double standard when it comes to Kyle Larson versus literally any other driver, and the fact that he is considered the "greatest driver in the world" and a "generational talent" by a contingent of NASCAR fans means you're basically not allowed to criticize him.
He can do no wrong, so when he makes a mistake, which is admittedly quite rare, it's always somebody else's fault.
And of course, as it turns out, it was not an intentional act of race manipulation by Wallace.
Larson passed Wallace on the inside coming off of turn two, and presumably in response to Reddick brushing the wall, immediately checked up as he cleared the No. 23 Toyota.
That check-up, which was entirely unnecessary considering just how huge the gap was between Larson's No. 5 Chevrolet and Reddick's No. 45 Toyota, led to the contact from Wallace.
Replay shows Larson checked up once Reddick hit the wall and Wallace wasn't expecting him to slow down that much that quickly.
— Davey Segal (@DaveyCenter) April 6, 2025
Easy (and lazy) to say it was on purpose but it's pretty clear that it wasn't. https://t.co/56OGL9bqgD
Instead of "lazy", I would have used the word "expected". It is expected that somebody else will be blamed when Larson makes a mistake, and the fact that it was Wallace, who has emerged as one of the sport's most polarizing figures (and easy targets), made it that much more inevitable.
Even Larson felt bad about the incident, because he is smart enough to know that, yes, unfortunately he did make a mistake.
We didn’t catch Kyle Larson before he left, but Cliff Daniels said Kyle told him he felt bad about being part of the last caution. They were trying to stay out of the way of the leaders and stay low, and Larson checked up early to make sure he didn’t get into Reddick, but Bubba…
— Jeff Gluck (@jeff_gluck) April 6, 2025
For as talented as Larson is, it's not a stretch to say that a certain portion of his fanbase is equally just as arrogant, and Wallace was simply on the receiving end of the criticism. Had it been any other driver causing a race-altering incident while running 167 laps down, the reaction would have been much different.
Larson was officially scored 175 laps down when the checkered flag flew.
No one is gonna mention how a car 175 laps down affected the outcome of that race. If it was Cody Ware, it'd be all we hear about.
— Beyond the Flag (@Beyond_The_Flag) April 6, 2025
But Larson is not perfect, and this will go down as an all-around forgettable weekend for the 2021 champion, easily his worst race weekend in quite some time.
It happens, and it's not Bubba Wallace's fault; it's not always someone else's fault.
Alas, it was a typical social media reaction by the NASCAR fanbase, which should always be taken with less than a grain of salt.