Kevin Harvick on Christopher Bell penalty at Martinsville: 'It was the right call by NASCAR'

Following Sunday’s controversial finish at Martinsville, which had a lot of moving pieces for NASCAR, former driver turned analyst Kevin Harvick opened up on the safety violation penalty assessed on Christopher Bell.

Bell was hit with the penalty following the last lap of the race, where he got into the wall and appeared to stay in the gas. It was a desperate attempt to maintain his track position, which would have been just enough for him to reach the Championship 4 on points.

For Harvick, despite the severity of the penalty, it was a move NASCAR had to make.

“Ultimately I think that was the right call by NASCAR and an easy call, based upon the hardcore driver opinions that happened after Martinsville and the Ross Chastain incident,” Harvick said on the Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour podcast.

That’s not to say it was clear cut. But it was a ruling the governing body simply had to make.

“It’s not black and white, I mean it is under the safety section of the rules,” Harvick explained. “There’s no black and white rule, but it was overwhelmingly with the drivers and NASCAR that it needed to be that way and not be able to be utilized.”

The reasons for that are multiple. First, there’s fan safety involved any time a car hits the wall. Second, driver safety is also a concern.

That’s why after Chastain did it NASCAR moved to ban it.

“Let’s just start with the wall ride. When Ross Chastain had the wall ride, he upshifted,” Harvick said. “We use fourth gear at Martinsville. He upshifted to fifth gear, went around the outside, rode the wall and wound up getting himself into the championship. And they immediately the next week, there was a meeting with the drivers and NASCAR and the wall ride was unanimously voted to say, ‘We don’t need that, we can’t do that, we don’t want that.’ Parts flying off the car into the stands, what if a tire falls off? I mean there’s so many scenarios that are unsafe to this particular situation.”

For Bell, the wall ride wasn’t quite as egregious as Chastain’s, which triggered a response from NASCAR after the fact.. Still, he did seem to benefit from staying in the gas after passing Bubba Wallace and hitting the wall.

“Now, he did get loose, he did go up the racetrack, he did hit the wall,” Harvick said. “But unfortunately for him there’s a camera inside the car and he just put the gas down, rode the wall. I think in that scenario he didn’t really need to ride the wall. All he had to do was wait to get the car back down the racetrack. But he doesn’t know who’s around him, how much time he’s lost. And I think he just floored it and rode the wall.”

As a result, Bell was dropped back to P22 and he lost the points he needed to get into the Championship 4. It was a penalty fitting the infraction, though much to his dismay.