The Martinsville Raceway ended up with a disaster on Sunday for Christopher Bell. While he is the driver with the most number of winless races till now, Martinsville just added the count. Despite making it to the Top 4, he was then disqualified. How did this all happen? 

Christopher Bell took up a move on the track which contributed to this decision by NASCAR. Keeping the kind of driver that Bell, he was seen quite nonchalant after NASCAR announced the final decision and removed Bell from the Top 4. 

Bell Seems to be over Martinsville Raceway too quickly 

Making it at the Martinsville Speedway was the only option left for drivers to make their way to the Top 4. The race ended with Ryan Blaney as the winner followed by Christopher Bell securing the last position among the Top 4 drivers. However, the end was not the end! Soon NASCAR released the decision that Christopher Bell was out of the standing. Right at Turn 3 with only 10 laps remaining, Wallace slowed down. This is the advantage that Bell took and he rode the wall to stay ahead of Wallace. Bell took up to the 18th position and this allowed him to slide past Byron and secure his Top 4 position. 

However, after lengthy deliberation, NASCAR ruled out this stance and termed this as a “safety violation”. Christopher Bell ended up losing four positions and he was dragged to the P22 finish. Byron took over his position and Bell ended up losing his final chance to make it to the Top 4 contenders. Bell’s move on Sunday was termed as “hail melon” which is an iconic move by Ross Chastain from two years back. Chastain had floored the gas peddle going into Turn 3 and ended up using the wall to direct the car. This allowed him enough spots to make it to the Championship. However, NASCAR had announced this move as a major safety violation in 2023 and stuck to the same even during Bell’s move to Martinsville. Bell who is known for his conservative and no controversial nature was seen as not being overtly expressive about this decision. In a post-race coverage, he reverted in quite a calm tone saying, “No I mean, I made a mistake and slid into the wall and unfortunately they ruled it as a safety violation. I don’t understand how I lose 4 points”. 

Given the stakes, any other driver in his position would most likely be hyper of what happened. However, Bell seemed to express quite a generic statement. He said, “Just wasn’t meant to be today and wasn’t meant to be this year. And we accomplished a lot this year and I am proud of of that. So just keep building on it…..I am proud of the successes we had in 2024. Its a bummer we are not going to Phoenix because already it’s a track we are really good at”. Instead of harboring any kind of negative or ill feelings towards Byron, he even tried to hype the contender for his Top 4 position. Before he left the pit road, Bell hugged Byron and said, “That’s not how I wanted it to go. But congratulations.” 

NASCAR Vice President Sawyer Milton Says “ It’s Unfair”

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Ever since NASCAR made it official that Christopher Bell was penalized and is no longer a part of the top 4, fans had been quite skeptical. However, NASCAR vice president of competition, Sawyer Milton has shared details about the decision. He said, “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”. Two years ago, the teams had sat down together at Phoenix and discussed at length what should be the stance related to this move. The decision was taken unanimously that this would be a “safety violation” as it had the capability of a flinging open and cutting the car in half. 

The current Top 4 standings include Joey Logano, Ryan Blaney, Tyler Reddick, and William Byron. Who do you think will be able to gain the Cup Series 2024 title and