The Playoffs Are at Fault for Martinsville Mess

Okay everyone. First, let’s all take a deep breath. Now, pull up a comfy chair, crack open your favorite beverage and let’s talk about the end of Sunday’s (Nov. 3) race at Martinsville Speedway.

At least there is no doubt about Ryan Blaney’s victory. Blaney drove to the lead with 15 laps to go and secured his passage to the Championship 4 for the second year in a row, joining Joey Logano and Tyler Reddick.

The fourth and final spot in the championship race took much longer to decide. With Blaney cruising to victory, William Byron was poised to be the only driver who would advance on points. He had a small cushion over Christopher Bell, who was the first driver one lap down and could not pick up any additional positions.

However, Byron was sliding back through the field on old tires and his small points advantage over Bell was starting to shrink.

That brings us to the final laps of the race when a couple of curious things happened. First, Austin Dillon and Ross Chastain caught Byron and rode behind him double-wide for several laps. Had either driver passed the No. 24, Byron and Bell would have been tied on points with Bell taking the tiebreaker. This meant that there would have been no Chevrolets in the final round of the playoffs. Byron, Chastain, and Dillon all drive Chevrolets.

Curious.

With Dillon and Chastain sitting behind Byron, it looked like Bell was out of time and out of options. But on the last lap, Bubba Wallace’s No. 23 Toyota slowed dramatically down the backstretch. Bell, also in a Toyota, passed Wallace and drove deep into turn 3, bumping into the outside wall. Once there, Bell hit the gas in turn 4 and raced back to the finish line. Having stayed ahead of the No. 23, Bell and Byron ended the race tied on points.

But the Championship 4 still was not settled. Bell’s last-lap move was similar to Chastain’s Hail Melon maneuver from two years ago, a wall-riding move that NASCAR has since disallowed for safety concerns. Furthermore, radio communications from the Nos. 1, 3 and 23 teams revealed that everyone was well aware of how close the points situation was between Bell and Byron. It was an absolute mess of a finish and for more than 20 minutes after the checkered flag fell, nobody knew who the Championship 4 drivers would be.

The final call from NASCAR was that Bell violated the rule against riding the wall. The actual penalty was to not count Bell’s final lap, dropping him to 22nd in the…