Bubba Wallace on Bumping at Martinsville: ‘It’s a Bad Way to Race, but There’s No Other Way’

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Bubba Wallace said using the bumper is still the only way to pass at Martinsville Speedway, even with NASCAR’s short-track bumper changes making contact more likely to damage a car.

The 23XI Racing driver talked about the change with Bob Perry ahead of Sunday’s Xfinity 500, the last race this season with the short-track bumper package.

Wallace: ‘I don’t want to be the first one to use it’

“I don’t know. I don’t want to be the first one to use it,” Wallace said. “Hopefully we’ll have somebody watching how hard they move somebody and what the damage is, but it’s different. I get it, the restart stack-ups, they’re brutal in these cars. Man, you get hit from behind, you see black for a second; that’s not good.”

But once the racing starts, he said, the bumper is how drivers get by each other at Martinsville.

“That’s how you pass in these cars, especially here, because our mid-corner section is so high, like it’s a bad way to race, but there’s no other way to move somebody besides: shove them off into the corner or hit them square in the middle of the corner, so yeah, we’ll see,” Wallace said.

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What NASCAR changed

NASCAR took the energy-absorbing foam out of the front and rear bumper structures of Cup cars at short tracks and had teams modify the front bumper struts. The goal was to soften the hits drivers take when bumped from behind, since the Next Gen car is so stiff that contact is jarring but rarely damages it. The package has also been used at North Wilkesboro, Richmond and Bristol.

Chase Briscoe said this week that Martinsville is where the change will matter most, and that it “would not surprise me if somebody knocks a radiator out,” as Pit This Time reported.

A different kind of Martinsville

Wallace said he had rewatched last fall’s Martinsville race, which was the cutoff race for the Championship 4 under the old format, when drivers near the cut line moved others out of the way. Under this year’s points-based Chase, there is no cutoff, but Wallace said drivers are still racing for spots in the standings.

“We have been mindful that the soft bumpers are in, so we can tear up some stuff if we get through aggressively,” Wallace said. He added, “It will still be chaotic; it’s Martinsville.”

Where Wallace stands

Wallace is 218 points behind Kyle Larson and out of title contention. He starts 15th on Sunday.

The Xfinity 500 starts at 2 p.m. ET Sunday, November 1, on NBC from Martinsville Speedway in Ridgeway, Virginia.