Bubba Wallace’s clash with Kyle Larson at the 2022 Las Vegas Motor Speedway race still lingers in fans’ memories. After hooking Larson into the wall and confronting him in the infield, NASCAR responded by suspending Wallace for one race. Despite the fallout, the 23XI Racing driver has remained unapologetic. And even now, he’s unfazed, this time carrying a lesson in retaliation from his father.

Bubba Wallace’s justification for confrontation

In a recent interview with Dalton Hopkins, Bubba Wallace was asked if he thinks NASCAR should fine drivers for confrontation, which it does as per the policy. Snubbing it without a flinch, the #23 driver put forward the lessons from his father:

“I don’t think so,” Wallace said. “When you’re done wrong, right, and it’s different. For me, I blame my dad, but I also respect how he was. But he was an eye for an eye, wasn’t he? When you’re disrespected, it’s a fine line of being a better person and making sure they don’t do that again, right? And, you know, when you feel like you need to step up for your team and your sponsors, you just—what Clint said about Newman, you know, at the All-Star Race—you poke them in the nose, right?”

Following this, Wallace further added that he wants everyone to speak up in order to avoid getting disrespected.

“So, yeah, I think it’s fair. But, you know, we’ve always talked about the hockey rules. Go to the ground, and then you can stop it. But there needs to be a fine line because it’s going to keep happening. You’re going to keep getting disrespected until it’s behind the scenes, and it’s much worse. So, yeah.”

Notably, Bubba Wallace has a long history of confrontations, and as a result, he is often linked with such incidents. In the 2022 incident with Kyle Larson, Wallace was initially forced into the wall by the former.

To give the HMS driver a befitting reply, Wallace hit back at Larson and put his car into the wall. After the race, the 23XI driver confronted Larson, and it turned into a physical altercation, in which he repeatedly shoved the latter.

As a result, NASCAR banned Wallace for one race. However, Wallace did not seem to have learned from it, as he once again showed his frustration in the race. This time against Alex Bowman in the Chicago race in 2024.

In the race, Bowman and Wallace made contact, which caused Wallace to spin out, and as a result, he retaliated by bumping into the HMS driver and sending him into the wall. NASCAR took cognizance of the incident and fined Bubba Wallace $50,000.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr., another driver who is known for his retaliations, also spoke against it, as he has yet to recover from the $75,000 fine he incurred after punching Kyle Busch a couple of years ago. However, not everyone wants to retaliate like this and incur fines.

Daniel Suarez wanted to avoid a fine in the Las Vegas confrontation

Daniel Suarez did not get physical with Ross Chastain even though there was a slight physical altercation between them when the former approached the latter after the Las Vegas race. Suarez wanted to remain calm and avoid any sort of physical altercation.

“I was actually very proud of myself in the way I handled the situation because the Daniel from three years ago probably would have kicked his butt,” Suárez said on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “But I have come to understand, and I’ll give you a few reasons. Reason No. 1, to punch him and put him on the ground, was going to cost me $50,000.”

Besides this, the Spire Motorsports driver also mentioned how he did not want to get into a fight because of the sponsor issue. He explained how sponsors never like bad media or bad PR. With this, he also mentioned how Ross Chastain was no match for him in a physical fight.

Suarez’s and Chastain’s standoff shocked NASCAR fans to say the least, as they were teammates at Trackhouse Racing before the team decided to sack the former and bring in Connor Zilisch. This was quite evident after Chastain shouted, “You got fired,” during their altercation.