Bubba Wallace to Drive Black Lives Matter Car at Wednesday’s NASCAR Race at Martinsville

In Wednesday’s Hot Clicks: Bubba Wallace’s bold statement on the NASCAR track, MLB’s stalemate and more.

This is a major statement in that sport

NASCAR drivers’ cars are usually covered bumper-to-bumper in ads for everything from motor oil to home insurance. But Bubba Wallace’s No. 43 Chevy will promote something very different during Wednesday night’s race at Martinsville. 

Wallace, NASCAR’s only current Black driver, and his team, Richard Petty Motorsports, unveiled a special Black Lives Matter paint scheme for the race. 

The car features “#BlackLivesMatter” over the rear wheel, while the hood and back bumper have the phrase, “Compassion, Love, Understanding.” The top of the hood has an illustration of Black and white hands interlocking (you may recognize the image from Drew Brees’s apology Instagram post).

Here is the car that @BubbaWallace will race at @MartinsvilleSwy pic.twitter.com/8ujMDthHc9

— Alan Cavanna (@AlanCavanna) June 9, 2020

“We knew that the Martinsville race was open—we did not sell a sponsorship for that—and it sparked an idea of, why not run a blackout car?” Wallace said in a video posted on RPM’s Twitter page. “Our team brought that idea to me and I jumped all over it. ... Why not dive in straight to the root and put #BlackLivesMatter on the car?”

Tomorrow night at @MartinsvilleSwy, @BubbaWallace will run a special #BlackLivesMatter paint scheme promoting racial equality. #CompassionLoveUnderstanding

Learn more: pic.twitter.com/MHWwNzIzFJ

— LEGACY MOTOR CLUB (@LEGACYMotorClub) June 9, 2020

What makes Wallace’s statement especially powerful is that it’s not the safe thing to do. It goes much further than RPM’s vague statement about “recent tragedies” released last week. NASCAR fans, according to a 2011 Scarborough Research poll, are 80% white and only 9% Black. Forty percent of them live in the south. Confederate flags are still flown by fans at racetracks, despite NASCAR’s 2015 request that they be left at home. (NASCAR refused to outright ban the pro-slavery banner at its tracks, but Wallace this week called for the organization to issue a true ban.)

If you want to kill a significant portion of your brain cells, click through to either of the tweets above (or this one from @NASCAR) and read the replies. Twitter isn’t the real world, but you can bet that the idiotic replies are reflective of at least a small part of the audience. There are some morons who will stop watching NASCAR because a driver dared to speak out in favor of equality. But there are surely also some people who had never heard of Wallace before, were impressed by his willingness to take a stand and will tune in to see how he does in the race. 

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LeBron gets it

Everyone talking about “how do we fix this?”  They say “go out and vote?”  What about asking if how we vote is also structurally racist? https://t.co/GFtq12eKKt

— LeBron James (@KingJames) June 9, 2020

MLB owners are risking the future health of the sport to save a few bucks this year

The MLBPA is making a proposal to MLB for a season of around 89 games with a full prorated share of salary and expanded playoffs, sources familiar with the situation told ESPN. It would bring the sides closer to a potential deal and is ~25 games under the last union offer.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) June 9, 2020

Initial reax from ownership source following players latest proposal: “We’re nowhere.”

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) June 10, 2020

Do they think we’re stupid? Franchises only ever increase in value

Damian Lillard’s newest song is about racism

Let me vent...https://t.co/gfSo0GyUq0

🎹 by @KevChoice #Blacklist #DameDOLLA #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/jH7nrugwDS

— Damian Lillard (@Dame_Lillard) June 9, 2020

He’s not wrong

Matt Ryan was asked about the possibility of playing in front of empty stadiums while pumping in crowd noise. “I’m not sure our organization should be talking about pumping in crowd noise.” 😂

— Jason Butt (@JasonHButt) June 9, 2020

Don’t try to impress a woman by cosplaying as a GM

girls who talk sports with you >>>> pic.twitter.com/vvbmBX3AQ0

— Nathan Marzion (@nathanmarzion) June 9, 2020

Now anyone can train like an Olympian

No gym? No problem: Olympic hopeful Sebastian Rossi trains for the Olympics with an innovative home setup pic.twitter.com/0qkCqn6ZVZ

— Reuters (@Reuters) June 9, 2020

Not sports

The TV show Cops has been canceled after 32 seasons. ... The movie theater chain AMC lost over $2 billion due to the pandemic.

Wanna spend 17 minutes watching someone restore a rusted knife?

First trailer for the third Bill & Ted movie

What a country

Life finds a way pic.twitter.com/4I0lrolstj

— Bunkie Perkins (@BunkiePerkins) June 9, 2020

A good song

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