Sawyer: NASCAR will Suspend Drivers “If We Have To” for Manipulating Races

On Tuesday evening, NASCAR dropped the hammer on three drivers and teams for their involvement in what the sanctioning body determined was the manipulation of the end of last Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Xfinity 500 at Martinsville Speedway.

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While NASCAR handed out nine total suspensions (Team Executive, Crew Chief, and Spotter) between all three teams, and fined the teams and drivers collectively $600,000 ($100,000 for each driver and $100,000 for each team), as well as 50 driver and owner point deductions, the sanctioning body will look at making the penalty for in-race manipulation even stiffer going forward.

NASCAR penalized every piece of the team that had a hand in the race manipulation in some form or fashion, the sanctioning body opted to issue heavier penalties to the team executives, crew chiefs, and spotters than the drivers in this case.

While the drivers involved in the scandal at the end of the Xfinity 500 at Martinsville were only handed monetary fines, albeit large ones, in an interview with SiriusXM NASCAR Radio on Wednesday morning, Elton Sawyer, NASCAR Senior Vice President of Competition, said the penalties could start including suspensions for the drivers involved.

“We plan this week to have meetings with all of our stakeholders to make our point very clear. Going forward, we will include drivers in this if we have to,” Sawyer explained. “This is something that is not going to be tolerated, and we’re not going to be dealing with this. And we’re going to be going to the racetracks, and giving our fans the best product that we possibly can on the racetrack. That is our goal.”

In addition to the drivers, NASCAR is looking at potential future penalties for the manufacturers (OEMs) in these situations as Chevrolet and Toyota likely swayed the decision for the three teams to intervene in the natural flow of the race. Sawyer says due to the current wording in the rule book, any manufacturer penalties won’t be possible until next season, but NASCAR is looking into that.

“We did discuss adding drivers, we did discuss adding our OEMs to that list,” Sawyer said. “At this point in time, there’s not language in the rule book that would allow us to penalize our OEMs. We plan to address that in the offseason.”

For those out of the loop, in the closing laps of the Xfinity 500, William Byron and Christopher Bell were locked in a tight points battle for the final position in the Championship 4 field. As Byron suffered damage, which hampered the handling of his No. 24 car late in the event, he began hemorrhaging positions. Byron, who fell to a one-point advantage over Bell, had help from behind in the form of a Chevrolet wall, built by Ross Chastain, and Austin Dillon, who ran side-by-side behind Byron for at least the final 25 laps of the race.

As this was going on, Bell was frantically trying to gain the final spot he needed to surpass Byron with a points tiebreaker. On the final lap, Bubba Wallace, a fellow Toyota, suddenly slowed heading into the final set of turns, which allowed Bell to cruise by. However, Bell in his haste to pass Wallace, slammed into the outside wall, and rode the wall for the remainder of the turn, which led to a post-race penalty from NASCAR as the sanctioning body determined the move was too similar to Ross Chastain’s now-banned 2022 “Hail-Melon” move, which secured his place in the Championship 4 that season.

As a result, Byron defeated Bell for the final Playoff spot by four points, but the obvious race manipulation drew the ire of fans, and NASCAR took action on Tuesday.