NASCAR insider accuses Bubba Wallace of “race manipulation” at Martinsville
23XI Racing’s Bubba Wallace drove three seconds slower than rest of the pack at Martinsville last lap raising questions.
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Bubba Wallace (Via IMAGO)
The NASCAR Cup playoff race on Sunday at Martinsville saw one of the most controversial finishes of the season, with drivers going all out for the spots in the championship-4. One of the most egregious incidents the race featured was the alleged race manipulation by Toyota and Chevy teams to help their drivers.
Chevy duo of Austin Dillon and Ross Chastain allegedly blocked the rest of the grid from getting close to William Byron. While Bubba Wallace significantly slowed down on the final lap to let the No:20 car of Christopher Bell pass. Senior NASCAR journalist Jeff Gluck, via his podcast, assed the situation and highlighted how drastically the 23XI car slowed down.
I mean, he can say, ‘Oh, my car was broken.’ He slowed down to give him a spot. His last lap there, I pulled it up somewhere. It was like, it was a 24-second-something lap, where everybody was running 21-second laps. Four second differential. So, he considerably slowed down.
Jeff Gluck said via The Teardown podcast.
But he doesn’t buy these claims and sees this as a clear case of race manipulation. He even overlooked the fact that Wallace, just three laps before had reported via team radio that his tires are flat. But this doesn’t justify how slow the car was on that lap.
And of course, he can say for plausible deniability, ‘Oh, there’s something wrong with my car.’ He said with three laps to go, he thought he had a flat tire. … So, this is where it gets sticky. … Clearly, the Bubba thing was race manipulation.
Jeff Gluck added.
Jeff Gluck doesn’t think the Chevy incident wasn’t as egregious
While talking about how the Chevy team also employed some questionable tactics’ Gluck pointed out that though it was questionable it wasn’t as egregious as the TRD’s move. He is wondering how NASCAR would approach the whole thing.
Then you have the Chevy thing, which I don’t think that’s as egregious as the Bubba part of this, personally. I do think it’s not great, and I’m wondering how NASCAR will react to it if they do anything. But the Bubba thing there, because that’s really, that’s him slowing down to give a spot.
Jeff Gluck said.
NASCAR has already confirmed that they are taking a hard look into the allegation and if they are caught with evidence, huge penalty, might be coming the way of 23XI Racing and maybe JGR. It will be interesting to see what the result will be.
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Justin P Joy
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