[autotag]Christopher Bell[/autotag] needed one point to make the Championship 4, and he gave it his all on the final lap at Martinsville Speedway. Bell drove the No. 20 car hard into Turn 3 and passed Bubba Wallace; however, he hit the wall and then drove it to the finish line. NASCAR reviewed the incident for over 20 minutes and deemed that Bell would be eliminated after a “safety violation.”
Following the event, NASCAR Senior Vice President of Competition Elton Sawyer talked about the sport’s decision to knock Bell out of the Championship 4 with a safety violation after riding the wall.
“[Christopher Bell] clearly got up against the fence there in [Turns 3 and 4] and rode the fans all the way off four there,” Sawyer said. “Strictly it’s to protect our drivers as well as our fans. So, yeah, it was pretty straightforward.”
Should Christopher Bell race for the NASCAR Championship?
Watch this move on the final lap. pic.twitter.com/3A3BrNe0fd
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) November 3, 2024
“I’m not going to speculate on what Christopher did or said what he meant to do, That wouldn’t be fair to try to make that type of decision based off that. We looked at the data. We looked at video. We’ve been very clear, based off our conversations with our industry, based off that move two years ago, that that would not be tolerated.”
Bell and Joe Gibbs Racing can’t appeal the decision, but it remains in the middle of controversy as the No. 20 car wouldn’t have been in that position if Chevrolet hadn’t held back against William Byron in the closing laps. The same can be said about Wallace backing up to Bell, and it will be interesting to see what NASCAR does about the race manipulation this week.
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