MARTINSVILLE, Va. — William Byron leaned against his car on pit road, his championship hopes no longer in his hands, and waited for NASCAR officials to make a decision.
“It’s crazy,” he said.
In a season punctuated by arrivals in thousandths of a secondThe wait Sunday night extended nearly 30 minutes after the checkered flag waved at Martinsville Speedway.
Winner Ryan Blaney celebrated on the front stretch, oblivious to the drama unfolding in the NASCAR tower and the tension building on pit road. Byron and Christopher Bell stood by their cars waiting to see who would race for a Cup championship next weekend at Phoenix Raceway and who would not.
Never has Martinsville Speedway – which held its first race in 1947 – seen anything like this.
There was nothing left to do but wait in a sport that doesn’t stop.
“It’s weird,” Bell told NBC Sports. “It’s weird. Everyone is standing. Nobody knows what’s going on.
Finally, the decision was made. Bell was out for driving into the wall on the final lap. Byron would get the last place in Championship 4.
When NBC Sports’ Kim Coon told him he was there and Bell had been eliminated, Byron shook his head.
“Serious?”
Cheers from the crowd – and a few boos – confirmed the decision seconds later when it was announced.
“It’s crazy,” Byron said.
Bell was stunned.
“I don’t know what to say,” he told NBC Sports. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to say.
The night was not over for some, however.
Team owners Joe Gibbs and Heather Gibbs, along with Bell crew chief Adam Stevens and other JGR executives waited outside the NASCAR hauler to speak with series officials.
Eventually they were let in. About 15 minutes later, Joe Gibbs got out of the truck. He walked away, his head bowed, and spoke softly.
“They said it was over,” he relayed.
There would be no appeal for Bell because there couldn’t be one. It was a racing violation that is not appealable, Elton Sawyer, NASCAR’s senior vice president of competition, later said.
NASCAR penalized Bell after he drifted to the wall in Turn 3 on the final lap and ran him through Turn 4, similar to what Ross Chastain did in 2022 to make the title race with his move ” Hail Melon.”
NASCAR banned the move ahead of the 2023 season, citing the maneuver as a safety issue. Sawyer said officials spent their time after Sunday’s race reviewing the infraction and then deciding how to respond.
While Bell finished 18th a lap down, NASCAR penalized him by dropping him to last place among cars a lap behind. This places him 22nd. The four dropped points allowed Byron to break the tie and advance.
Meanwhile, questions emerged about Bubba Wallace’s Toyota slowing down on the final lap. Bell, a Toyota teammate, passed him to gain the place and point he needed to seemingly advance. Wallace told reporters: “I got loose or something broke and I fixed it. … I’m just trying to bide our time and not crash and cause a caution and confuse the whole field.
NASCAR explains decision against Bell that sends Byron to championship race
NASCAR dropped Christopher Bell from 18th to 22nd for driving into the wall on the final lap at Martinsville.
Questions also emerged about how Austin Dillon and Ross Chastain battled with Byron, another Chevrolet driver, in the closing laps. Neither surpassed Byron. Audio feed from both teams broadcast on NBC showed the pilots being informed of Byron’s tenuous hold on the final handover point.
Sawyer said NASCAR did not focus on either issue immediately after the race. But officials will have plenty to discuss this week.
“We’re going to look at everything,” Sawyer said. “Like I said earlier, we want to go back, like we would have done anyway. We will come back, we will take all the data, video. We will listen to the car audio. We will do all of this, as we would any event.
That didn’t worry Blaney, who was delighted to win this race for the second year in a row. He followed last year’s Martinsville victory by winning his first championship a week later in Phoenix.
Blaney had some time to celebrate before focusing on racing for another title.
But he had one thing on his mind Sunday night.
“I have a question,” Blaney told reporters. “What happened at the end of the race? I don’t know. I have no idea what happened.
“People came up to me at Victory Lane and someone asked me. They said, “Hey, what about this?” I have no idea what happened.
For nearly 30 minutes after the race, no one on pit road knew what was going to happen.
When NASCAR’s decision came, there was little celebration.
“I don’t know how to feel,” Byron said.
