“A stupid call”: Amy Earnhardt disagrees with Dale Jr. over NASCAR’s Martinsville penalty to Christopher Bell

Some would say that Christopher Bell's wall-riding move at Martinsville Speedway last Sunday was egregious and against the NASCAR rule that banned the maneuver first performed by Trackhouse Racing driver, Ross Chastain in 2022. However, Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s wife, Amy, felt differently.

Bell, who drives the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota full-time in the Cup Series, was battling fellow racer William Byron for that last spot in the final four. But his hopes to make the Championship 4 ended when NASCAR dropped him from 18th to 22nd for scraping the wall into Turn 3.

At the end of the race, the Oklahoma native could only bag 20 playoff points, which was not enough to qualify for the championship race. Bell got ousted from contention while Byron made the coveted race.

According to Dale Earnhardt Jr., NASCAR has made the right decision. In a recent episode of his Dale Jr. Download podcast, the Hall of Famer said,

“I think NASCAR makes the right call here. It did take 27 minutes to make.(0:23)”

Amy replied,

“I think it was a stupid call. I just feel like (if) I'm a NASCAR driver, why would I not just give it everything I've got and cowboy through this? (0:32)”

In NASCAR’s rule book, section 10.5.2.6.A clearly states that “any violations deemed to compromise the safety of an Event or otherwise pose a dangerous risk to the safety of Competitors, Officials, spectators, or others are treated with the highest degree of seriousness.”

Was Christopher Bell’s action an outright violation of NASCAR’s safety regulations? There could be various takes on the same. Bell, however, did not blame NASCAR. Instead, he focused on what he could have done differently in the race.

Christopher Bell breaks the silence on his NASCAR penalty, says he “could have done better”

Christopher Bell admitted that what looked like a “Hail Melon” to several NASCAR aficionados was an honest mistake. After the race was over, Bell explained that his car had just slid loose past the corner and run into the wall.

“I understand that the rule was made to prevent people from riding the wall but my move was completely different than what Ross’ (Chastain) was,” Bell said during a post-race interview (via GP Fans). “I got loose getting into the corner and slid right into the fence. I don’t know what else to say.”

“It’s a bummer, but in the grand scheme of things, there’s a lot of things that we did poorly today that we could have done better within our control,” Bell further stated (as quoted by NASCAR). “So yeah, I don’t know. We accomplished a lot of things this year. The championship won’t be one of them, but we’ll try again next year.”

Nevertheless, Christopher Bell has the opportunity to bag the 10th win of his Cup career and his fourth of the season. Fans can watch him race this coming weekend (November 10) at Phoenix Raceway from 3 pm ET onwards, only on NBC Sports. Radio updates will be available on MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.