Bubba Wallace Suspended Following High Speed Retaliation to Kyle Larson in Vegas

NASCAR has made a ruling in regard to perhaps the biggest story coming out of last weekend’s playoff race in Las Vegas.

During the contest, competitors Kyle Larson and Bubba Wallace made contact on the track, doing damage to both vehicles. It would appear as if Wallace took offense to Larson’s decision-making and decided to retaliate at high speed. Wallace swerved his number 45 Toyota Camry down the track and tagged Larson’s number 5 Chevrolet Camaro in the rear quarter panel, sending Larson’s car up the racing surface and hard into the wall in a move that the racing community as a whole seems to think was incredibly dangerous, to say the least. Wallace told reporters after the fact that he simply lost steering which caused the contact. However, onboard data would show that Wallace had the throttle pinned to the floor as he accelerated into the number 5 Chevrolet.

Following the apparent retaliation, NASCAR fans across social media we left wondering if the sanctioning body would do anything to punish the driver. Tuesday, they made their decision. Wallace will be suspended for one race, making him miss the playoff race in Homestead, Miami. Wallace missed the cut for the NASCAR playoffs so he wasn’t in contention for the driver’s championship. The number 45 team will still gain points for the owner’s championship, though.

The community at large had a lot of discussions about the incident. Many brought up the fact that the new car design that NASCAR launched this year has been relatively dangerous and that such an aggressive act of retaliation put Larson directly in harm’s way. The very reason that Wallace is behind the wheel of the number 45 and not his typical number 23 in the first place is due to a seat swap with his teammate, Kurt Busch, who decided that he was going to retire following a crash that caused a head injury earlier this season.