NASCAR insiders assess Christopher Bell’s ‘intention’ to ride wall at Martinsville
NASCAR issued a safety violation to Christopher Bell for riding the wall on the final lap of this past Sunday’s Xfinity 500 at Martinsville Speedway.
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 this Sunday after passing Bubba Wallace with a “Hail Melon” remake, is now out of the playoffs. William Byron benefitted from the penalty, now joining Joey Logano, Ryan Blaney and Tyler Reddick in the Championship 4.
Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic debated whether Bell’s wall ride was intentional on “The Teardown” podcast. While Gluck doesn’t believe Bell’s wall ride was intentional, it happened, and NASCAR had to make the call after it banned the move following Ross Chastain’s original “Hail Melon” at Martinsville two years ago.
“The way I look at it, Bell clearly didn’t have to do that,” Gluck said. “That move where he’s going by Bubba, he kind of just got himself in the wall. … I do believe that he didn’t have the intention to do a wall ride, but it looked like it was.”
NASCAR insider: Christopher Bell ‘panicked’ on final lap at Martinsville
NASCAR senior vice president of competition Elton Sawyer said that the decision to penalize Bell 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.”
Bianchi said it looked like Bell “panicked” in the moment, as Wallace was clearly off the pace and appeared ready to let Bell go by.
“It looked like he panicked,” Bianchi said. “Bubba was going to let him go. That was the spot. I don’t want to speak for him, but it looked like he panicked. [He] didn’t know the situation or whatever and said, ‘I’m going for it.’ That’s what it looked like, but he didn’t need to do that. If he would have slowed down, Bubba was gonna slow down too.”
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