NASCAR’s Elton Sawyer explains decision to penalize Christopher Bell for wall ride at Martinsville
NASCAR senior vice president of competition Elton Sawyer said that the decision to penalize Christopher Bell for riding the wall on the final lap of Sunday’s Xfinity 500 at Martinsville Speedway was “pretty straightforward” in accordance with the rulebook.
“Obviously, we look at all the video,” Sawyer said. “As I back up on that and you go back two years ago when we had the situation with Ross [Chastain] here, we went to Phoenix, there was a lot of dialogue with the drivers that that’s not a move that we wanna have to make on the last lap. We were able to make it through Phoenix and had a great championship race that year.
“In the offseason, meeting with the industry, meeting with our drivers. And to a man, that was not a move they wanna have to make. So, there’s language in the rulebook. And you look at it today, he clearly got up against the fence there in [Turns] 3 and 4 and rode the fence all the way through there. That’s strictly to protect our drivers, as well as our fans. That one’s pretty straightforward.”
Christopher Bell penalized after controversial ‘Hail Melon’ move at Martinsville, misses Championship
Bell was penalized 27 minutes after the race concluded as NASCAR took its time in making the correct ruling. Bell, who took the final transfer spot into the Championship 4 at Phoenix next Sunday after passing Bubba Wallace courtesy of his “Hail Melon” remake, is now out of the playoffs.
William Byron, whom Bell passed in points to secure the fourth and final spot, is through to the Championship 4, joining Joey Logano, Tyler Reddick and Ryan Blaney. The latter took the checkered flag at Martinsville to clinch his spot at Phoenix.
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Elton Sawyer comments on Bubba Wallace, Ross Chastain, Austin Dillon involvement in Martinsville controversy
As Sawyer mentioned, riding the wall is illegal after Chastain’s “Hail Melon” move at Martinsville two years ago. 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.
“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.”
Sawyer said those other situations had “no bearing at this time” on NASCAR’s decision.
“If you look at the other situations, the 23 [Wallace] [and] the cars behind the 24 [Byron], really no bearing at this time,” Sawyer said. “We’ll look at those at a later time. But when you really just [look at] exactly what happened, look at the 20 [Bell] getting up against the fence and then riding the fence, which as we clearly stated in our statement after Ross did that, that would not be accepted.”