Bubba Wallace to drive 'Black Lives Matter' car at Martinsville

Bubba Wallace will drive a car supporting the Black Lives Matter movement three days after he wore a shirt supporting the movement before he raced at Atlanta.

Wallace’s Richard Petty Motorsports car Wednesday night at Martinsville will be all black and feature a handshake on the hood and the words “Black Lives Matter” on the sides and “compassion, love, understanding” on both the front and back of the car.

On Sunday, the only black driver racing full-time in any of NASCAR’s top three series wore a shirt that said “I can’t breathe” in honor of George Floyd’s last words as he was killed on May 25 in Minneapolis.

After Wallace wore the shirt for pre-race ceremonies and the national anthem, NASCAR held a moment of silence before the green flag as president Steve Phelps spoke to drivers and teams over the radio about racial injustice and the move for social change.

Wallace’s first NASCAR win came at Martinsville in 2013 when he won a Truck Series race at the track. His victory was the first NASCAR national series win for a black driver since Wendell Scott won at Jacksonville in 1964.

Wallace appeared on CNN Monday night and said that he felt NASCAR should ban fans from flying the Confederate flag at tracks. While NASCAR has requested that fans don’t display the flag in the infield and at track campgrounds, it hasn’t officially banned the flying of the flag by fans at its tracks.

After pledging to do more to address racial and social inequality on Sunday, NASCAR took a step in that direction on Tuesday. The sanctioning body tweeted that it had become a part of the You Can Play Project in support of Pride Month.

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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.

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