Bubba Wallace is a rising star in NASCAR. He is the only full-time Black driver in the NASCAR Cup Series and recently won a Duel race at Daytona to begin the 2025 season. On top of all of it, Wallace is also a new parent and now has to find a balance between his personal life and his career.
“You really have to find the time to set aside work and be a dad,” Wallace said. “It’s challenging but it’s been good so far.”
Wallace and wife Amanda married in late 2022. Two years later, they had their son, Becks Hayden.
With this major change in their lives, they had to adjust around the baby. This includes working through meetings and races, then going home to try and put the baby asleep. It is admirable to see Wallace pull through this period in his life.
Things are also getting hectic as Wallace prepares to move homes. So on top of the racing and taking care of his child, he and his wife are preparing their house for sale, adding to their workload.
So how does he relax with all this stress? The same way a lot of people do, playing video games.
Wallace is known for playing “Mario Kart,” even hosting a tournament between him, his teammates, and their fans in “Mario Kart 8 Deluxe,” via the Nintendo Switch Online service. So how has that changed with the new arrival?
He has found that gaming after putting Becks to bed is a comfortable compromise. After putting his son to bed, he is free to game until he is ready to put an end to it….only to be woken up by Becks in the middle of the night
“We need to adjust his schedule,” Wallace said. “We are still on his schedule.”
The new adjustments that Wallace has had to make in the past few months are impressive, and it is hard not to commend him for making those changes in his life to be a present figure in his child’s life.
Wallace will start 14th in the No. 23 Columbia Sportswear Toyota in the Ambetter Health 400 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.