To recap the final laps of yesterday, the No. 20 of Christopher Bell was penalized for wall riding. While his wasn’t as egregious as Ross Chastain’s that forced NASCAR to create that rule in the first place, one could argue he rode the wall after contact with no clear attempt to get off the wall.
No penalty was issued for the No. 24, which makes sense because William Byron in and of himself nor his team did no wrong.
Before the safety violation, the two were tied in points at the cut line. Bell had originally owned the tiebreaker due to a higher finishing position in the round (second at Las Vegas). But the penalty makes it a moot point.
The bigger question now lies in NASCAR’s ruling on the OEM’s involvement. NASCAR has not issued a penalty on the manufacturers in the modern era. Dodge boycotted the sport after their Hemi was banned back in 1965, according to historian Seth Eggert.
The videos of onboard cameras quickly made their rounds across social media. Radio communications are clearly heard with premeditated race manipulation/assistance from Austin Dillon and Ross Chastain being side by side for the closing laps – no radio audio yet of Carson Hocevar who was also in that mix at the time of publication. Furthermore, radio audio was found with part-time driver Shane Van Gisbergen reminding him of what “the 12 (Ryan Blaney, who races a Ford) did to him earlier” and how “that message comes from Chevrolet.” Van Gisbergen either elected to not do anything or could not get an opportunity to do something and Blaney went on to win the race and earn his golden ticket into the Championship 4.
Austin Dillon Onboard
Ross Chastain Onboard
Shane Van Gisbergen Onboard
Bubba Wallace Onboard
All four drive Chevrolets, matching the manufacturer of Byron. Brad Keselowski was caught in the middle of that pack, driving a Ford, and tweeted, “This should be the last straw on the camel’s back for the playoffs.”
Toyota Racing may also be in the spotlight with Bubba Wallace, who claimed a tire going down in the closing laps. Bell passed him in the final corner with Wallace slowing significantly. In Wallace’s defense, the onboard camera showed him going high in a corner with roughly five laps to go, and the car never handled properly from that point moving forward.
The following day, Denny Hamlin shared on his podcast Actions Detrimental that “Toyota Racing never, not once this week, told 23XI (Racing) to do anything for (Joe Gibbs Racing)… I don’t think I’ve ever been a part of a conversation saying if this happens, then you have to do this. They’ve never said that, even on superspeedways. They’ve left it up to the teams.”
NASCAR has announced they are reviewing footage and radio recordings from the closing laps of the Nos. 3, 1 and 23 cars, and that an OEM penalty is not off the table. “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,” said Elton Sawyer, Senior Vice President of Competition with NASCAR.
But should there be more on the table?
Let’s say NASCAR does issue a fine and points penalty to Chevrolet (there is a separate manufacturer’s championship). Currently, Chevrolet leads with 40 points over Ford with Toyota an additional 8 behind. If a 50 point penalty were issued, it would flip the entire script behind the scenes with their championship hunt going into the last race of the season. And with two Fords, one Toyota and only one Chevrolet in the driver’s Championship 4 come Phoenix this weekend, it could be a tall task to overcome considering the more public facing circumstance.
Will that penalty offset the difference of Byron making the Championship 4 vs. being eliminated at Martinsville?
That’s the biggest question that should be asked and answered with this penalty.
Because if not, what is holding back Toyota from doing a 5-wide salute with their other fielded Camrys across Joe Gibbs Racing, 23XI Racing, and Legacy Motor Club to allow Tyler Reddick to stay ahead of the other three championship contenders in the closing laps at Phoenix? Should NASCAR penalize just Toyota and let Reddick claim his first career Cup Series title, or should Reddick suffer the consequences as guilty by association?
And if Reddick were to be penalized in that situation, why wouldn’t Byron from a week earlier?
When NASCAR introduced the Playoffs, it faced some questions, scenarios and criticisms that this very thing could happen. Many people posted on social media, “That would never happen,” claiming conspiracy theorists and boomers being stuck in the old days.
In the defense of those boomers, race manipulation of this magnitude never happened in the old days because a system was set up to never reward such behavior.
Before the Playoffs made its inception in 2004, points were earned only at the finish of the race. Bonus points were given to all drivers who led a lap and additional points to the driver (or drivers if tied) who led the most laps. So manipulating the race to hold back other drivers only allowed them to get closer and gain more positions at the finish – which in turn, gave their competitors more points in the championship hunt. Nearly any kind of race manipulation by teams or manufacturers would only hurt them naturally in the long run.
That’s not to say it hasn’t been tested.
In the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, Jim Smith’s Ultra Motorsports, a two-truck team, fielded five trucks in the 2003 Truck finale. One broke loose and wiped out Brendan Gaughan, a championship contender.
Junior Johnson, Richard Childress and Richard Petty among others entered extra cars and parked them early to pad the points in multiple seasons in the 1980’s and 1990’s. More points were earned with more entries, and for tracks that limited the amount of drivers that could make the field, it caused some regulars to not qualify for the race and earn zero points from the weekend.
Come the mid-90’s, the natural balance of law and order within the NASCAR championship points format was found.
Fast forward to yesterday where it was lost.
Recently, NASCAR has made rulings against race manipulation. Cole Custer was docked 50 points and $100,000 for manipulating his race position for his teammates benefit at Charlotte Motor Speedway back in 2022. Earlier this year, Dillon’s victory at Richmond Raceway was encumbered after intentionally wrecking both Joey Logano and Hamlin in one corner in two separate incidents, removing the benefits of his win from his eligibility to be seeded into the Playoffs.
And no one can forget the 2013 controversy when Jeff Gordon was the extra man in after Michael Waltrip Racing made strides to fabricate a caution in the closing laps of the regular season finale.
It all goes back to the burning question: if the penalty does not remove Byron’s eligibility to race for a championship, then what does Toyota have to lose with doing the same thing for Reddick, or Ford to benefit Logano or Blaney?
There are only two things that make sense for a scenario like this. Either remove the Playoff elimination system and let the races and points naturally play themselves out, or penalize Byron as guilty by association and bring in the sixth place driver as the final Championship 4 contender. Ironically, it would be Byron’s teammate, Kyle Larson.
To make matters worse, a different kind of race manipulation happened last year in the Truck series when Hocevar was in the Championship 4. Battling Corey Heim, the two made contact and continued to retaliate throughout the race. Eventually, a caution flew that cost Grant Enfinger the championship.
“That is not professional auto racing,” said Martin Truex Jr. after the 2023 Truck finale. “It’s a joke; they need to fix it.”
The integrity of the sport and the ethics of racing is walking a thin line right now, and NASCAR is doing what they can right now with the limited time they have with the green flag of the final race waving in less than six days.
But this week’s penalty report will be one of the most important decisions they will have to make in the modern era to preserve the purity of motorsports.