Bubba Wallace Will Join the Centurion Club at Dover as He makes His 100th NASCAR Cup Race Start

When the NASCAR Cup Series kicks off at the Dover International Speedway, a special milestone awaits Bubba Wallace. The #43 driver is set to participate in his 100th race start in his third full-time NASCAR season.

The Alabama native is already a rising star and has five ARCA Menards Series East wins under his belt. In addition to that, he added six NASCAR Truck Series wins.

Later on, Cup Series driver Aric Almirola picked up an injury, and Richard Petty Motorsports roped in Wallace. His first race at the Pocono Raceway marked his Cup debut, and he became the first African-American Cup Series driver since Bill Lester.

Sadly, it was not a dream debut as he would have liked it to be; he qualified 16th and finished 26th, owing to a few pit road speeding penalties. To make matters worse, he passed out and required immediate medical attention.

Bubba Wallace: His career so far

In 2017, Wallace took part in three more races at Michigan, Daytona, and Kentucky. Out of those three races, his best finish was an 11th place finish at Kentucky. Sadly, sponsorship trouble cost him his Xfinity ride at Roush Fenway Racing.

Ahead of the 2018 season, the Richard Petty Racing team took a keen interest in his work and signed him. As a result, he became the first full-time African-American competitor in the Cup Series since Wendell Scott.

In his first race, he finished 3rd at the Daytona International Speedway behind Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano. This took place in the duel event, and he placed seventh-place for the Daytona 500.

Things got even better for him during the Daytona 500, as a late charge helped him finish second behind Austin Dillon. Despite missing out on a win, his popularity sky-rocketed.

This made him the highest-finishing African-American competitor in the Daytona 500, since Scott’s 13th-place result in 1966. Sadly, his form has been wayward since then, with barely a handful of Top-10 finishes.

When the 2019 season got underway, he finished no higher than 17th place. That was until the Charlotte Motor Speedway race. He staved off a stiff charge from Daniel Suarez to win the second stage of the race.

This earned him a start in his first All-Star Race of his career. Later on at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, he survived a chaotic race to finish third behind Kevin Harvick and Joey Logano.

In 2020, though, Bubba Wallace had a decent season with the highest finish of 6th at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Since then, he has been going up and down the order and is currently in the 21st place in the regular-season standings.

WATCH: The Crash That Stole a Potential Top-10 Finish for Bubba Wallace at Daytona