Kyle Larson beat Bubba Wallace by a fraction of a second, 0.001 to be exact. Wallace made sure his NASCAR rival heard from him afterward. It was all in good fun, as the two shared a brief word with one another before Wallace walked off.
In the past, Larson and Wallace have been at odds with one another. Forever, they will be linked by that outburst at Las Vegas in 2022. Today they will be linked as the field approaches the green flag, starting P1 and P2.
During his press conference after winning the pole, Kyle Larson talked about what Bubba said to him on pit road. Nothing more than having a little fun with a fellow racer.
“I think he just, I think he said eff you,” Larson said, laughing. “No, it was, no, it was cool to get a pole but to edge Bubba out because he’s got a big personality I knew he would come up and say something on pit road. So, no, I think we do – although we’ve had our couple run-ins along the way, I think we do have a lot of respect for each other.”
A lot of people like Larson’s teammate, Alex Bowman, for today. Bowman is firing off P10 this afternoon and will try to get his second Martinsville win in his Cup Series career. The Hendrick Motorsports cars are all fast. William Byron is lagging behind, but I’m sure he will get his car dialed in eventually.
Martinsville is a place that means so much to Hendrick Motorsports. They have the ruby red cars out to celebrate the 40th anniversary of that first win at Martinsville and of the organization. The weather is picturesque and the sun is beating down on the track. It should be a good race.
Kyle Larson hoping to avoid Bubba Wallace headlines
Of course, going into this race, Kyle Larson and Bubba Wallace will be door-to-door. They were doing a lot of that last week at Richmond. Neither Larson or Wallace want to make headlines for another incident involving the two of them.
However, as the top two cars in qualifying, they will have to do a bit of racing early on, at least. Larson is searching for his second win of the season. Wallace is looking for his first, and his first top-5 since Atlanta.
It won’t be easy for anyone to beat Larson today. With how well he controls races, it’s hard to see that changing unless we get a few wild caution flags. Now, Martinsville isn’t Larson’s best track by any means. He has problems running consistent lines and laps here.
So, it’s possible that we see him run well. Then again, Kyle Larson could get in his own way again. He has a tendency to be too aggressive and that leads to mistakes. Something tells me he won’t have much of an issue today.
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