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NASCAR announced Tuesday evening it has suspended nine people and handed out major fines and points penalties after the controversial end of last Sunday's Cup Series race at Martinsville. That finish saw multiple teams engage in race manipulation in an effort to try and ensure that other drivers aligned with their manufacturer would make the Championship 4 in Phoenix. The teams directly involved include two Chevrolet teams in Trackhouse Racing and Richard Childress Racing as well as the Toyota team of 23XI Racing.

In the closing laps of Sunday's race, William Byron and Christopher Bell ended up only a single point apart for the final spot above the cut line to make the Championship 4, with Bell needing to gain one more position in order to move into a tiebreaker on points -- which he held by virtue of a better finish in the Round of 8 -- and make it to the final round of the playoffs. But on the final lap, fellow Toyota driver Bubba Wallace backed off the pace considerably, backing his pace to over two seconds off of the lap times he had been running and putting Bell in a position to pass him in the final corner.

While Wallace said over his team radio that he believed he had a tire going down, others suggested that his team had been telling him to back off the pace so that Bell could catch and pass him, though Bell's pass on Wallace was ultimately disallowed after Bell committed a safety violation by riding the wall in Turn 4.

Much more damning radio communications came from the No. 1 team of Ross Chastain and the No. 3 team of Austin Dillon, as the two effectively ran a blockade on the closing laps in order to keep fellow Chevrolet driver William Byron from losing any more positions, which would have knocked him out of the Championship 4 and put Bell's Toyota in.

Dillon and Chastain's crews were heard communicating about a "deal," with a smoking gun that the Chevrolets were resolved not to pass Byron coming in the form of Dillon's radio communications in particular. The actions of the two Chevrolet teams also prevented Brad Keselowski's Ford from passing Byron.

After a review of both team radio communications and on-track data, NASCAR determined the teams involved violated sections 4.4.B&D of the NASCAR rule book, specifically rules pertaining to attempting to manipulate the outcome of a race or the championship. As a result, the following penalties have been assessed:

  • The crew chiefs (Phil Surgen, Justin Alexander, Bootie Barker) and spotters (Brandon McReynolds, Brandon Benesch, Freddie Kraft) of all three teams involved have been suspended for the season finale at Phoenix, as well as a team executive (Tony Lunders, Keith Rodden, Dave Rogers) from each organization.
  • Drivers Ross Chastain, Austin Dillon, and Bubba Wallace as well as their teams have each been docked 50 points and fined $100,000. The total sum of the fines is $600,000.

The penalties handed out marked an escalation from the last similar such ruling in 2022, when Cole Custer and his team were penalized for slowing down dramatically on the final lap to impede the progress of other cars and allow Stewart-Haas Racing teammate Chase Briscoe to make the next round of the playoffs. NASCAR senior vice president of competition Elton Sawyer directly referenced the penalty to Custer when discussing the course of action NASCAR took, and made note that future violations could include punishment to OEMs and suspensions to drivers involved in orchestrating such schemes.

"At this point in time, there's not langauge in the rule book that would allow us to penalize our OEMs. We plan to address that in the offseason," Sawyer told SiriusXM. "We discussed at length our drivers. We felt like in this particular case, we wanted to focus on the executive group around the race teams that are making decisions, that are giving this information to the drivers 

"... We plan this week to have meetings with all our stakeholders to make our point very clear, going forward, that we will include drivers in this if we have to. This is something that's not going to be tolerated."

In addition to the race manipulation penalties, NASCAR also handed out the following other penalties:

  • Richard Childress Racing pit crew members Josh Sobecki and Michael Russell have been suspended for the next two races due to the on-track loss of an improperly installed wheel on Kyle Busch's car.
  • Chandler Smith has been fined $10,000 for slapping Cole Custer on pit road following the end of Saturday's Xfinity Series race at Martinsville.
  • NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series driver Ty Majeski has been fined $12,500 for failing to meet media obligations. Majeski, who is in the Truck Series Championship 4, did not show up for a media and production day on Tuesday.