Even though they had their own race to run in Sunday’s Cook Out 400 at Martinsville Speedway, several NASCAR Cup stalwarts couldn’t help but talk about Saturday’s embarrassing ending to the Xfinity Series race, particularly between Sammy Smith and Tanner Gray.
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Perhaps Bubba Wallace, who finished third for the second consecutive Cup race, put it best.
“Cup guys know how to race, especially when you’re up near the front,” Wallace said succinctly.
Sure, Wallace could have wrecked his 23XI boss — and eventual race winner Denny Hamlin late in Sunday’s race — but Bubba has learned numerous times that being overly aggressive doesn’t always end with wins or maintaining friendships.
“We treat each other with a lot of respect,” Wallace said of himself and his fellow Cup competitors. “We race each other hard, and as frustrated as you get in the moment, you appreciate those hard moments because you learn.”
“When you go in there and just bounce off each other and destroy each other, you don’t learn (expletive). It was a good day of being aggressive, but also patient at the same time, and just enjoying it.”
With back-to-back third-place finishes at Homestead and now Martinsville, Wallace’s stock has steadily improved. He is hungry for his third career Cup victory, not having reached victory lane since 2022.
“Bootie (Wallace’s former crew chief Bootie Barker) always says you have to keep throwing your name in the hat,” Wallace said. “So we’ll keep doing that. It’s fun to have fun, so that’s all I’m going to keep doing.”
Sunday’s race winner, Denny Hamlin, earned his sixth win at Martinsville Speedway, but also his first there since spring 2015. Hamlin’s spotter, Chris Lambert, also had a hand in Saturday’s Xfinity race, spotting for Brandon Jones, who was an innocent victim of the last-lap wreck at the finish line when the checkered flag fell.
Lambert agreed with Wallace’s assessment of Saturday’s race, and the difference race fans saw in Sunday’s more professional Cup race.
“It’s accountability from all of us, from the guys in the (driver’s) seat to the team owners, to the guys on the radio and roof, to the crew chief, it’s accountability by all of us to know what needs to happen to make these races work,” Lambert told broadcaster Claire B. Lang. “There’s the old saying that ‘I had to do it or he would have done it to me.'”
“I’ve been doing this a long time and racing’s all I’ve ever done, and to me that’s just a copout, just gives you an excuse to do it. … It’s just a mindset we have to get out of all these kids and show them it can be done the right way and you don’t have to do anything (bad).”
