CHICAGO — Alex Bowman said he was embarrassed by his contact that spun Bubba Wallace during Sunday’s Chicago Street Race and that Wallace should not be penalized by NASCAR for hitting him after Bowman won the event.
Issues started when Bowman’s contact spun Wallace in Turn 2 on the Lap 25 restart.
“I’d be mad, too,” Bowman said of Wallace. “I ruined his day. The restart was chaotic. I just made every wrong decision that I possibly could. I was fighting with my windshield wiper switch trying to get it working and I couldn’t get it working. I was focused on that, missed the corner.
“I locked all four tires and just slid right into him. I just messed up and absolutely ruined his day.
“I’m pretty hard on myself when I make mistakes like that and I’ve been embarrassed about it since it happened. The rain delay was a lot of me just sitting there being embarrassed and being mad at myself.
“He has every right to be mad.”
Bowman said he tried to call Wallace during the rain delay and also sent him a text.
“Nothing I can do to make it better,” Bowman said after ending an 80-race winless drought. “I”m sure us winning probably only makes it worse.”
Bowman and Wallace had an incident in 2019 at Charlotte Roval that ended with Wallace splashing Bowman with liquid as Bowman was being attended to by medical personnel.Wallace had been spun by Bowman during that race.
“We had our deal a long time ago,” Bowman said. “But even today we raced the hell out of each other, but we gave each other a lot of space and it was really fun racing with him. We’ve raced each other super fair and super clean. I just messed up and ruined his day. I hate that.”
Wallace finished 13th. He remains the first driver outside a playoff spot. Six races remain in the regular season.