Well, it was a Toyota affair at Martinsville Speedway. Denny Hamlin broke a 31-race winless skid and added his 55th NASCAR Cup Series race victory to an arsenal of trophies. Amidst losing sponsors, FedEx and Mavis Tires, and his crew chief Chris Gabehart, to start the season, Hamlin had set off a flurry of doubts about his chances at success. However, Hamlin showed everybody who the ‘boss’ is – although Bubba Wallace is not prepared to accept that.
The driver of the No. 23 Toyota officially drives under 23XI Racing, the team that Denny Hamlin owns. Yet at Homestead-Miami Speedway and Martinsville Speedway, Bubba Wallace gathered all his resources to treat Hamlin as his level competitor.
Bubba Wallace gets into that glorious streak
The Cook Out 400 felt like a continuation of last week’s race for Bubba Wallace. During the Straight Talk Wireless 400, the Toyota star overcame several challenges. These included fighting off a miserable attitude after contact with rivals, cracking jokes in the heat of the race, and battling wheel-to-wheel against Homestead maestro Kyle Larson. Similarly, Wallace did not shy away from facing Denny Hamlin – a now six-time winner at Martinsville, also his home track in Virginia. After rolling off 8th place, Wallace lingered around the top 10. Although Hamlin held the storyline by leading for 274 laps, Wallace never let his team owner rest as he hounded his back. Eventually, Wallace clinched a third-place finish behind Christopher Bell, another Toyota driver.
So in a post-race interview, Bubba Wallace insisted that people stop referring to Hamlin and Wallace as boss-employee. NASCAR Hall of Famer Kevin Harvick was privy to this switched-up dominant attitude: “I told Harvick when Sunday’s coming around, the 11 [Denny Hamlin] has no benefit for the 23 [Bubba Wallace] car. So I am tired of hearing I’m racing the boss. He’s not the boss, he’s a competitor.” The last two cautions of the race allowed Bubba Wallace a small window. Chase Briscoe clipped the curb in Turn 3 and caused the 10th caution. However, Hamlin dominated both restarts smoothly, and Wallace did not want to get too aggressive. “Came about a little too late; I didn’t want to participate… Congrats to those guys.”
.@BubbaWallace is very pleased with today’s 3rd-place result from @MartinsvilleSwy.
“You just gotta keep your name in the hat”#CookOut400 #NASCAR pic.twitter.com/SF6a45F5T1
— Peter Stratta (@peterstratta) March 30, 2025
Bubba Wallace was proud of this controlled manner of racing. There were ten cautions throughout the Martinsville race, and the 23 team was not part of any. Wallace said that he wished to continue this disciplined trend and took a sly dig at Saturday’s Xfinity race as well. “Cup guys know how to race – especially when you’re up near the front. We treat each other with a lot of respect. I raced really hard, and as frustrated as you get in the moment, you appreciate those hard moments ’cause you learn. When you go in there and bounce off each other and destroy each other, you don’t learn s—. It’s a good day – a good day of being aggressive but also patient at the same time and just enjoying it.”
The Marine Corps 250 on Saturday saw Austin Hill take the win but was followed by mass outrage. A slew of cautions dominated the race, with over 100 yellow flag laps run in the third stage alone! JR Motorsports’ Sammy Smith spun out Taylor Gray on the final Turn and took himself out of the race, too. It was a display of aggressive and mindless driving, which Denny Hamlin even criticized on X, writing, “Absolute garbage.” The Cup race saw fewer cautions and much cleaner racing, and Wallace was a huge part of that.
However, Bubba’s race was not all clean. He did make one error, which ended a dominant run from an underdog driver.
A pit road mistake
It looked like another win was on the line for Wood Brothers Racing. Josh Berry, driver of the No. 21 Ford, already has a golden history in Martinsville. Back in 2019, Berry won the prestigious ValleyStar Credit Union 300 late model race. What is more, he won the pole, led every lap, and won the race. Berry also won a NASCAR Xfinity Series race at the Paperclip in 2021. So clearly, Berry was figuring highly on the prediction models. He also earned the 14th starting spot for the Cook Out 400 race with a lap at 95.545 MPH. However, all his speed and momentum melted away because of an unintentional mistake by Bubba Wallace.
Soon after the first caution was called because of debris on the track, Josh Berry elected not to make a pit stop and soared ahead. Using good tire strategies, he led the field back to green – this dominance continued for 40 laps. However, while exiting the pits for the race’s second caution, Bubba Wallace hit the No. 21 Ford on the left rear in a traffic jam. Berry’s car stalled in Turn 2 and then lost two laps as it headed to the garage for repairs.
Eventually, Josh Berry finished 33rd in Martinsville. Despite this unfortunate finish, the WBR driver could achieve a first for his team. He led the most laps for WBR at Martinsville Speedway since NASCAR Hall of Famer David Pearson led 180 laps on April 29, 1973. Pearson’s dominance was the most recent victory for the team at its hometown track just east of its origins in Stuart, Virginia.
Evidently, Bubba Wallace may not be too proud of depriving WBR of its chance at a second victory. Nonetheless, the 23XI Racing driver is on a quest to topple his team boss’s dominance. After another impressive drive at Martinsville, do you think Bubba Wallace is due a victory soon? Let us know in the comments!
The post Bubba Wallace Switches Up His Dominant Run in the Front as “Not a Boss” Finally Salvages 2025 Season appeared first on EssentiallySports.
