Everyone, drivers and teams alike, are expecting an ugly race to happen at Martinsville Speedway. According to Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kyle Busch, the track simply refuses to rubber up, causing a lot of stripped tire marbles being left on the track and causing immense danger for drivers.

Busch says that "it's going to be insane," adding that "there's going to be a lot of hurt feelings and a lot of beat-up fenders." Meanwhile, Earnhardt explains that "if you got in the marbles, it would ruin you," adding that "once you got in the marbles, you ruined that set [of tires]. I mean, there is no way to get them off. We don't go fast enough here to really grind them off. It was messy. It was just real messy all day."

A couple of weeks earlier in Bristol, the same problem had occurred. Fortunately, NASCAR tire sponsor Goodyear decided to switch tires in order to help with the situation.