NASCAR penalized the three teams involved in manipulating the finish of Sunday’s playoff race at Martinsville Speedway, issuing suspensions, fines and points penalties to Bubba Wallace’s No. 23 car, Austin Dillon’s No. 3 and Ross Chastain’s No. 1 on Tuesday.
The teams received penalties for driving in a way that would ensure certain drivers would finish high enough to advance to the Championship 4.
The drivers themselves were not suspended, but each will lose their crew chief, spotter and a team executive for the season finale at Phoenix — meaning 23XI Racing (Dave Rogers), Richard Childress Racing (Keith Rodden) and Trackhouse Racing (Tony Lunders) will all be without some key personnel this weekend.
Each team was also penalized 50 points apiece and fined $100,000 (both drivers and owners) after their actions at Martinsville were found to have altered the finish of Sunday’s race, which set the field for NASCAR’s Cup Series championship race. Wallace falls from 17th to 18th in the point standings, Chastain remains at 19th and Dillon drops from 28th to 33rd after receiving his second significant penalty of the season.
Despite the apparent collusion by the Chevrolet and Toyota teams, NASCAR did not issue any immediate penalties following the race, but NASCAR senior vice president of competition Elton Sawyer said that officials would look at any potential manipulation of the finish during its customary post-race debrief using video, data and in-car audio.
Over the final laps of Sunday’s race, Chastain and Dillon ran side-by-side directly behind William Byron, effectively serving as Byron’s blockers so no one would pass him while also refusing to pass Byron themselves. This helped Byron maintain a position high enough in the running order to eventually clinch a spot in the Championship 4.
While Chastain and Dillon worked in unison to protect Byron, Wallace began intentionally slowing down, seemingly in an attempt to allow Toyota teammate Christopher Bell to pass him. Bell eventually passed Wallace entering Turn 3 on the final lap, giving Bell an additional point that would have been enough for him to advance — had NASCAR later not penalized him for riding the wall coming to the finish line.
When Wallace was asked post-race why he slowed, he said there was an apparent issue with his car.
“I went loose or something broke. I was nursing it,” Wallace said. “Then, (Bell) tried to slide me and I’m like, ‘Brother, I’m trying to bide our time and not crash and bring out a caution, jumble up the whole field.’ That was it.”
NASCAR has a history of coming down hard on drivers and teams found conspiring to manipulate the finish to races.
In 2013, Michael Waltrip Racing was fined a record $300,000 for its attempt to fix the finish to the regular-season finale at Richmond Raceway so that MWR driver Martin Truex Jr. would qualify for the playoffs. MWR had Truex teammate Clint Bowyer intentionally spin to bring out a late caution followed by MWR’s third driver, Brian Vickers, curiously making a green-flag pit stop after the race restarted. In addition to the monetary penalties, Truex was also removed from the playoffs.
And two years ago, NASCAR fined Stewart-Haas Racing driver Cole Custer and crew chief Mike Shiplett $100,000, respectively, and docked the team 50 driver and owner points. Shiplett was also indefinitely suspended. The penalties were a result of Shiplett telling Custer to dramatically slow down on the final lap so that teammate Chase Briscoe could pass Custer during a playoff elimination race at the Charlotte Roval, allowing Briscoe to advance to the next round.
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(Photo: David Jensen / Getty Images)
