NASCAR explains decision against Bell that sends Byron to championship race

MARTINSVILLE, Va. — NASCAR officials focused solely on if to penalize Christopher Bell for riding against the wall on the final lap of Sunday’s elimination race at Martinsville Speedway during the approximate 25 minutes it took for them to render a decision.

NASCAR ultimately penalized Bell for what it termed a safety violation, dropping him from 18th to 22nd after the race. Bell, who finished a lap behind the leaders, was dropped to the last car among those running a lap down. That allowed William Byron to secure the final spot in next weekend’s championship race at Phoenix Raceway, joining Joey Logano, Tyler Reddick and Martinsville winner Ryan Blaney.

Elton Sawyer, NASCAR senior vice president of competition, said officials did not, however, focus on the Chevrolet cars of Ross Chastain and Austin Dillon riding side-by-side behind the Chevrolet of Byron, who could not afford to lose another position in the final laps. Nor did officials spend time on the issue of Bubba Wallace’s Toyota slowing on the final lap, a move that allowed Bell’s Toyota to pass and seemingly gain the point he needed to advance.

“If you looked at the other situations that were going, [Wallace] and the cars behind [Byron], really no bearing at this time,” Sawyer told reporters Sunday night. “We’ll look at those at a later time.

“But when you just dissect exactly what happened, look at the situation with [Bell] and up against the fence and then riding the fence, which we’ve clearly stated in our statement after Ross [Chastain] did that [in 2022], that that would not be accepted.”

NASCAR announced Feb. 1, 2023, that it was outlawing the “Hail Melon” move Chastain made when he rode against the wall in Turns 3 and 4 on the final lap of the Martinsville playoff race in 2022. Chastain used the desperation move to gain five spots and take the final place in the title race from Denny Hamlin.

NASCAR stated at the time it was not adding a rule but noted a portion of the rulebook that covered it.

Section 10.5.2.5.A of the Cup rulebook reads: “Safety is a top priority for NASCAR and NEM. Therefore, any violations deemed to compromise the safety of an Event or otherwise pose a dangerous risk to the safety of Competitors, Officials, spectators, or others are treated with the highest degree of seriousness. Safety violations will be handled on a case-by-case basis.”

Wallace slowed on the final lap and Bell passed Wallace entering Turn 3. Bell drove up to the wall and rode along the SAFER barrier from the middle of the corner through Turn 4 before he moved off it on the frontstretch.

After the race, Wallace told reporters: “I went loose or something broke and was nursing it and then [Bell] tried to slide me. I’m like, ‘brother.’ Just trying to bide our time and not crash and bring out a caution and jumble up the whole field.”

Bell defended his actions of riding against the wall.

“My options are to slide into the wall or spin out,” Bell told NBC Sports. “I can’t spin out, so I slid into the wall.”

As for the time it took before the results were announced, Sawyer said: “We want to get it right, first and foremost. This is not something that happens every week. We want to be prepared.

“I thought our team in the tower did exactly what we needed to do. Let’s get this right.

“Fortunately, we don’t have it every week. It is something that we’ll go back and figure out if we could have made that decision faster, for sure. I didn’t know it took — you could have told me it took five minutes or 55. I don’t know.”

Also in the final laps, Chastain and Dillon ran side-by-side behind Byron

NBC played communication on Dillon’s radio after the race.

“You know the deal?” Dillon asked.

“I’m trying to find them to tell them,” came the response. “Justin [Alexander, crew chief], you tell the crew chief and I’ll tell … “

“ … does [Chastain’s] crew chief know the deal?

“He should.”

NBC also played audio from Chastain’s radio that included spotter Brandon McReynolds telling to Chastain to be “nice and smart” around Byron because Byron was “one (point) to the good.”

Sawyer said NASCAR will review all matters.

“We’ll look at everything,” he said. “As I said earlier, we want to go back, as we would have done anyway. We’ll get back, we’ll take all the data, video. We’ll listen to in-car audio. We’ll do all that, as we would any event.

Asked about any potential penalties this week, Sawyer said: “As I said, we’ll look at it.”