Kyle Petty calls out critics of NASCAR's last lap decision on Christopher Bell after Martinsville
Kyle Petty has come to the defense of NASCAR against its critics for the safety violation the stock car series levied against Christopher Bell following Sunday’s Xfinity 500 at Martinsville Speedway.
Petty, speaking in a video for NASCAR.com, said that Bell was in clear violation of the rulebook when he rode the wall in Turns 3 and 4 on the final lap.
“I’m not gonna talk about the 3 [Austin Dillon], I’m not gonna talk about the 1 [Ross Chastain] and I’m not gonna talk about the 23 [Bubba Wallace]. Because let me tell you why, that is a call NASCAR has to make,” Petty said. “Everyone wants to say Chevy did this, Toyota did that — no, you can’t ride the wall. The 20 car of Christopher Bell, when he got into Turn 3, he gassed her up and came on home with it. And guess what, they loaded it on the truck. And he went back to Charlotte with it, not in the playoffs because he rode the wall. It’s the rule.”
Bell was penalized 27 minutes after the race concluded as NASCAR took its time in making the ruling. Bell, who took the final transfer spot into the Championship 4 at Phoenix next Sunday after passing Wallace courtesy of his “Hail Melon” remake, is now out of the playoffs. Riding the wall became a safety violation after Chastain’s “Hail Melon” at Martinsville two years ago.
William Byron, whom Bell passed in points to secure the fourth and final spot, is through to the Championship 4.
Petty took zero issue with the amount of time NASCAR took to come to a decision.
“NASCAR took 20 or 30 minutes to make that call. Everybody wants to whine about it. ‘Why did they take so long? Why did they take so long?’ Listen, it’s called an investigation,” Petty said. “They could have had a knee-jerk reaction and sent him home off the bat. But it would have been a knee-jerk reaction. It would not have had any teeth to it.”
NASCAR to further investigate controversy surrounding Christopher Bell, William Byron at Martinsville
What became unknown, however, was whether Byron would be penalized as well. In the closing laps of the race, Byron had to play defense on Chastain and Austin Dillon, as if one of them passed him, he would be below Bell in points. Both Chastain and Dillon are Chevrolet drivers, and it’s clear based on their radio audio they were well aware of what was at stake for Byron, also a Chevrolet driver.
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“24 is one to the good, one point to the good,” a team member told Chastain.
“Does the 1 team know the deal,” someone asked over Dillon’s radio. “Yeah, he should,” was the response from a team member.
The other part of the equation is that Bell made his pass on Wallace, a fellow Toyota driver. Wallace ran 2.4 seconds slower than Bell on the last lap, appearing to slow up to allow Bell to catch up and go by him. Wallace claimed he “got loose or something broke.”
NASCAR said Monday it will look further into the on-track actions of Chastain, Dillon and Wallace.
“We’ll look at everything,” senior vice president of competition Elton Sawyer 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, listen to in-car audio. We’ll do all that, as we would any event.”