Emotional Darrell Wallace Jr. shares historic second-place finish and tears with family

Mike Hembree | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Austin Dillon nabs special win at Daytona 500 USA TODAY Sports' Mike Hembree breaks down a wild finish at the Daytona 500 that put Austin Dillon in victory lane.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – A visitor to the Daytona International Speedway media center Sunday night might have assumed that Darrell “Bubba” Wallace Jr. won the Daytona 500, NASCAR’s biggest race.

Wallace finished second. If he had won, the speedway might have exploded.

Members of Wallace’s immediate family and friends saw him for the first time post-race as he arrived in the media center to discuss his second-place finish. Emotions overflowed.

Wallace’s mother, Desiree, walked to the podium and gave him a long hug. “I’m so proud of you, baby,” she said, over and over again.

“You act like we just won the race,” Wallace said.

“We did,” she said.

They both cried.

Wallace’s sister, Brittany, also stepped forward for a hug, Bubba telling the crowd that she is responsible for his good looks.

Dillon: Drives No. 3 to Daytona 500 win, 20 years after Dale Earnhardt Sr.'s triumph

Hembree: Daytona 500 lives up to billing with wild finish

End of the line: Danica Patrick's NASCAR career closes out with Daytona 500 crash

“Pull it together, bud, pull it together,” Wallace said as he cried into a towel after sitting down to answer questions.

Wallace fell 0.28 of a second short of outrunning Austin Dillon for the victory and what would have been an upset of colossal proportions. Wallace was momentarily irritated about that — and about late-race contact with third-place finisher Denny Hamlin — but the good dramatically outweighed the bad for the first full-time African-American driver in NASCAR’s premier series since the 1970s.

Before the race, Wallace received an encouraging tweet from Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton and a surprise phone call from baseball Hall of Famer Hank Aaron, who, like Wallace, is from Mobile, Ala.

“That makes you feel good,” Wallace said. “It definitely pulls on your heartstrings a little bit, just to know that you’re being watched by so many greats. They’re the ones you’re looking up to, and they reach out to you and that’s really cool.”

Wallace, driving in his first Daytona 500 and only his fifth Cup race, pushed Dillon in the draft over the closing mile and edged Hamlin for second.

“It’s just wild,” he said. “It’s Daytona. You’ve just got to be relaxed for it the whole time.

“We battled through a lot of adversity.”