Amid a competitive Martinsville Speedway race on Sunday (Nov. 3), NASCAR found itself with a controversy on its hands, marring what had been a dramatic final elimination race before the NASCAR Cup Series champion is crowned for 2024.
First, Christopher Bell was penalized for riding the wall too long after he got loose and slapped it at the finish, knocking him out of the playoffs and sliding William Byron in. But while NASCAR was reviewing the finish, something else appeared: radio transmissions from a handful of teams to their drivers reminding them of “an agreement,” as well as suggesting that one driver pay back another — a title contender who needed a win to advance — for what was such a non-incident that even the driver didn’t really seem to know what it was about.
All of the radio chatter centered around playoff drivers and seeming orders from their manufacturers to up the odds in favor of certain drivers. The season was in limbo for a time while NASCAR sorted things out.
If you thought that was wild, buckle up.
In 2013, the title was decided by a 10-race title “Chase” that featured 12 championship hopefuls: the top 10 in points plus a pair of “wild cards,” the two winningest drivers in the back half of the top 20 in points based on wins. After the initial points reset, there were no eliminations and no more resets. At the reset, all 12 drivers were set to 2000 points, with three bonus points for each win (the wild cards didn’t get the bonus points), separating the top 12 by 15 points in 2013.
That meant the title was up for grabs among anyone who qualified, and competition for the last spots in the final race of the regular season at Richmond Raceway was fierce with only a couple of spots undecided.
At the time, Michael Waltrip Racing was a team on the rise. Run out of a huge, state-of-the-art facility, MWR had two full-time cars with excellent sponsorship in 2013, along with a third car shared among Michael Waltrip, Mark Martin and Brian Vickers.
Clint Bowyer had already clinched a spot in the Chase by the time the Cup Series rolled into Richmond for the race that would set the field. Martin Truex Jr. was in contention for the second wild-card spot after Kasey Kahne had already clinched the first one.
The wild card wasn’t the only spot being contested. Joey Logano’s tenuous hold on 10th spot could open the door for Jeff Gordon to race his way in, which would have handed Logano the…
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