Bu bba ba ba ba, McDonald’s is loving it. After Bubba Wallace’s victory in the rain-shortened NASCAR Cup Series YellaWood 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, the iconic fast food burger chain made a drastic change to their corporate Twitter account on Tuesday.
For the 4.3-million people who passionately follow the corporation, the McDonald’s Twitter account was showcasing a bit of a NASCAR-vibe, and more specifically, a Bubba Wallace vibe.
The Twitter bio for McDonald’s read simply, “#23,” Wallace’s car number with the 23XI Racing team. The visible name for McDonald’s, which shows up in timelines when the company Tweets, was changed to Bubba Wallace Stan Account.
Additionally, McDonald’s classic Ba da ba ba ba jingle tagline was changed to Bu bba ba ba ba in the company’s cover photo and the Twitter account’s avatar was changed to a photo of Wallace during driver introductions.
Yeah, Monday’s win by Bubba Wallace was a big deal.
The win marked only the second-ever win by an African American driver in NASCAR Cup Series history, the other being Wendell Scott back in December of 1963. So, it was a historic day.
But overall, for McDonald’s, Monday seemingly equaled the end of what many had begun to refer to as, ‘The McDonald’s Curse‘.
The McDonald’s Curse?
Heading into Monday’s race at Talladega, the golden arches had been featured as a primary sponsor on a NASCAR Cup Series race car 472 times, in points paying NASCAR Cup Series races, since 1977, and it had only reached victory lane twice.
Both McDonald’s NASCAR Cup Series wins, before Monday’s triumph by Wallace, came during the 1994 season with Jimmy Spencer behind the wheel of Bobby Allison Racing’s No. 27 machine.
Following his two-win 1994 campaign, Spencer was released from the Allison Racing team.
The company had hitched it’s wagon to a who’s who list of drivers over the years, including Bill Elliott, Kyle Larson, Jamie McMurray and even Matt Kenseth last season when NASCAR suspended Larson for the majority of the season. But time after time, something has happened to keep the red and gold car out of victory lane.
Whether it be another car being just slightly better on the given day, or a parts failure, a crash. Name the reason, the McDonald’s car has found it over the years. On Monday, the company and their latest driver Bubba Wallace found a way to pull through for a much deserved win.
Was there really a curse? And if so, has it been lifted?
Who knows, but one thing is for sure, McDonald’s is pretty damn happy and proud to be able to call themselves a NASCAR Cup Series race-winning sponsor again.
