LONG POND, Pa. (AP) — Bubba Wallace and his wife have a baby on the way and a mortgage to pay on their home. So when Wallace eyed a pack of media at Pocono Raceway, he decided he’d be the one to open with a question.
“Anybody got any money?” he quipped.
Wallace was a bit light in the wallet this week after NASCAR fined him $50,000 for retaliatory contact against race winner Alex Bowman on the cooldown lap of the Chicago Street Race.
Wallace door-slammed Bowman’s car and sent it into the wall.
The move cost Wallace some cash, for sure — and yes, driving for Michael Jordan's 23XI Racing team, he can afford the fine. More than that, the incident opened Wallace's eyes to the fact that he really wasn't acting like the person he wanted to be at the track.
“The penalty was probably the best thing that's happened to me,” Wallace said Saturday. “I've been miserable for years."
The 30-year-old Wallace has long been open about his battles with depression, triggered by both personal and professional struggles. Known for wearing his heart on his sleeve, Wallace acknowledged he hasn't been a beacon of joy at the track as he approaches almost two years since his last Cup Series victory. He starts 29th in the No. 23 Toyota on Sunday at Pocono.
“I've been walking around with a persona I'm not proud of,” Wallace said.
Wallace apologized for his recent behavior to everyone from his publicist to a journalist he brushed off last week to Bowman and even the NASCAR official who informed him of the fine.
“I'm just frustrated. I'm trying way too hard,” Wallace said. “I'm not focused on the right things.”
Wallace has also wrestled with his role as an agent of change in NASCAR following his successful spark to help the industry ban the Confederate flag in 2020. He is seen as a hero to some, particularly those who have longed for a Black driver to shake things up in a predominantly white sport. To others, Wallace represents something else entirely and he has seen plenty of haters out on social media over his career.
“For the last four or five years, people have been wanting me out of the sport, right?” Wallace said. “People don't really understand.”
Wallace found a surprising source of advice this week when he bumped into retired NASCAR great Kevin Harvick. Wallace was set to race with Harvick in a grassroots racing series when talk turned to the Bowman incident and NASCAR's fine. Long one of NASCAR's most outspoken drivers, Harvick told Wallace to show up at Pocono “with a smile on my face and accept it.”
“I might not agree with the penalty but I'm smiling about it,” Wallace said. “He also told me a lot of powerful things. To show up and be the fun-loving guy that I am throughout the week. I think that has been one of the most important things told to me. People don't see who I actually am on Sundays. That broke me.
“I always preach about being the same person on and off the racetrack. It's a pressure-cooker being at the Cup level, right? And the last four years, I've been miserable just trying to walk around like everything's OK.”
Wallace insisted his overall mental health was fine. But he owed an apology to one more person: his wife, Amanda.
“I wasn't the best husband,” he said. “I made her feel like she had to walk on eggshells after bad races. That's not what it's about. It's about going home and getting a fresh reset and being close to the people that are around you. That's what I'm looking forward to.”
Wallace said he strayed from his normal jovial self at the track because he always felt the need — even with two Cup victories — to prove himself as a person.
He laughed when he said he blamed his father — whom Wallace has said he's had a complicated relationship with over the years — who told him not to start trouble. But always to finish it, if needed.
An eye for an eye.
Like in Chicago.
Bowman said after the race at rainy Chicago he had spun Wallace during the event and the retaliation was warranted. Bowman also advocated for Wallace not to be punished. Bowman said Wallace “has every right be mad.”
Wallace’s window net was down when he slammed into Bowman after the race, and the camera inside Bowman’s car showed the driver was jostled by the hit.
“Did I time it wrong? Sure, 100%," Wallace said. "His window net was down, seatbelts were off. Not an ideal situation.”
Denny Hamlin, who co-owns 23XI with Jordan, believed NASCAR levied the fine because the dustup was caught on camera. He also didn't discuss the matter with Wallace.
“I think it being live and everyone seeing it, probably caused a little more of a social media uproar which then they responded to that,” Hamlin said.
Wallace is chasing a spot in NASCAR's playoffs with six races left. He's 45 points behind Chris Buescher for the final spot in the 16-driver field. A win gets him an automatic berth.
Harvick told Wallace to take a breath because the punishment could have been worse. A heavier fine. Points docked. A suspension.
Compared to those alternatives, maybe being out $50,000 isn't so bad — even as Wallace joked home improvements must wait.
“I told my wife, hey, we might have to hold off on that baby room,” Wallace said. “I've got to pay this fine first."
Martin Truex Jr. is close to the finish line of his NASCAR career. He’s already made it there at Pocono.
The track honored Truex — who announced he will retire from full-time racing at the end of this season — by painting TRUEX Jr at the start/finish line.
“As a driver, you don’t ever feel like you’re really deserving of things like that,” said Truex, who has two career wins at the track. “For Pocono to do that, it’s really special for me, my family. Definitely cool to see and hope we’re the first to cross it tomorrow.”
Truex could use a win to position himself to chase a second career Cup championship in his final season. Truex has yet to win this season for Joe Gibs Racing and clings to one of the four open spots on points.
Denny Hamlin is the BETMGM Sportsbook favorite to win Sunday.
AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing
Bubba Wallace (23) makes his way into Turn 3 during a NASCAR Cup Series auto race, Sunday, June 30, 2024, in Gladeville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Wade Payne)
NEW YORK (AP) — The R&B singer Cassie testified Wednesday that her ex-boyfriend Sean “Diddy” Combs kept her in a cycle of abuse and exploitation by threatening to release videos of her encounters with male sex workers that he orchestrated.
Addressing the Manhattan courtroom for a second day in Combs' federal sex trafficking trial, Cassie said that even though she loathed having drugged-up sex with strangers, she couldn’t reject Combs’ demands because he would make her “look like a slut.”
“I feared for my career. I feared for my family. It’s just embarrassing. It’s horrible and disgusting. No one should do that to anyone," said Cassie, whose legal name is Casandra Ventura. She sued Combs in 2023, accusing him of years of physical and sexual abuse. The suit was settled within hours but dozens of similar legal claims followed from other women, sparking the criminal investigation against him.
Prosecutors showed the jury five still images from the sex videos, recovered from electronic devices that Cassie provided to investigators. Cassie said the images showed her with male sex workers and at various stages of the encounters, which Combs called “freak-offs,” that sometimes lasted days. One juror's eyes widened, and another shook his head from side to side.
Prosecutors have accused Combs of exploiting his status as a powerful music executive to violently force Cassie and other women to take part in sexual encounters. He is charged with five counts, including sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion.
Combs denies all of the allegations and has pleaded not guilty. His attorneys acknowledge he could be violent, but say the sex he and others engaged in was consensual and that nothing he did amounted to sex trafficking or racketeering.
Combs’ lawyers were expected to begin cross-examining Cassie later Wednesday, when they would get the chance to challenge her credibility or poke holes in her account of what happened.
During her first day of testimony, she spent hours recounting details of her decade-long relationship with Combs, including the freak-offs which she said ended in 2017 or 2018. She also said Combs beat her numerous times. The encounters took place in private, often in dark hotel rooms, unlike Combs’ very public parties that attracted A-list celebrities.
Cassie’s testimony is exposing the dark underside of a relationship that, for years, played out publicly in pictures of the couple smiling on red carpets and celebrity events. She said she met Combs in 2005, when she was 19 and he was 37. Combs signed her to a 10-year contract with his Bad Boy Records label. Within a few years, they started dating, Cassie said.
They were photographed in 2016 attending the premiere of the film “The Perfect Match,” only two days after Combs beat and kicked Cassie at a Los Angeles hotel after a freak-off — an attack captured on security camera footage played on TV and in court. After the footage was leaked last year, Combs apologized. Jurors were shown photos of them at the premier.
Cassie, now 38, calm and poised after an emotional first day of testimony, said she used makeup to coverup her bruises and wore sunglasses to hide a black eye for the premiere. She said she sneaked into a popcorn closet at the movie theater to switch dresses for an afterparty so that bruises on her legs wouldn’t be visible.
On another occasion in 2013, while she was packing to go to Drake’s music festival in Canada, Cassie said Combs scuffled with her friends and threw her into a bed frame. She sustained a “pretty significant gash” above her left eye. Combs’ security personnel brought her to a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills to get the wound stitched up, she said.
Afterward, she said she texted Combs a photo of her injured face and wrote: “So you can remember.” Combs replied: “You don’t know when to stop. You pushed it too far. And continued to push. Sad.”
Her 2006 song “Me & U” went platinum, but when prosecutors asked on Tuesday what happened to her music career, Cassie testified that eventually much of her week went toward engaging in and recovering from the freak-offs, until they “became a job.” She left Combs’ record label in 2019.
She said Combs would routinely threaten to embarrass her by releasing videos of her engaging in sex acts. She said he’d do it when he was angry or to instill fear in her, like when she started dating someone else.
After a trip to the Cannes Film Festival in 2013, Combs began playing a recording of a freak-off on his laptop computer as he and Cassie sat together on a commercial flight. Cassie said Combs told her that he was “going to embarrass me and release them.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Johnson asked if there were “people around you” when Combs was playing the videos on the phone. Cassie said there were. After landing in New York, she testified, they went to dinner and then had another freak-off right afterward.
Also Wednesday, prosecutors showed Cassie a binder of photos and she identified 13 as male sex workers she said she recruited at Combs’ behest for encounters in Las Vegas, Miami and Los Angeles. She said she had sex with all of them, though she couldn’t remember all of their names. She identified a half-dozen other sex workers in court on Tuesday.
She testified Tuesday that Combs would pay the men thousands of dollars to have sex with her for 36 or 48 hours, and the longest lasted four days. The encounters left her feeling emotionally “just really empty, and I felt just gross.”
“It was something I hated doing,” she said, but she endured them because she was in love with Combs and “felt like I did my job.”
Cassie testified Wednesday she would recover by getting IV fluids, massages and having a chef cook meals. She said she developed an opioid addiction from using them after the encounters as a coping mechanism.
Combs, 55, has been jailed since September. He faces at least 15 years in prison if convicted. The trial is expected to last about two months.
Associated Press writer Dave Collins in Hartford, Connecticut, contributed to this report.
Defense attorney Teny Geragos, center, exits court during the Sean "Diddy" Combs' sex trafficking trial, Tuesday, May 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey)
FILE - Cassie Ventura, left, and Sean "Diddy" Combs appear at The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute benefit gala celebrating "China: Through the Looking Glass" in New York on May 4, 2015. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP, File)
Sean Diddy'Combs, far left, and attorney Marc Agnifilo, second from left, listen as witness Cassie Ventura, far right, answers questions from assistant US Attorney Emily Johnson, center, with Judge Arun Subramanian presiding in Manhattan federal court, Tuesday, May 13, 2025, in New York. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)
Sean Diddy'Combs, far left, and attorney Marc Agnifilo, right, sit at the defense table during witness testimony in Manhattan federal court, Tuesday, May 13, 2025, in New York. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)
Cassie Ventura takes an oath before testifying in Manhattan federal court, Tuesday, May 13, 2025, in New York. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)
Cassie Ventura wipes tears from her eye while testifying in Manhattan federal court, Tuesday, May 13, 2025, in New York. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)
