“Don’t get me wrong”: Elton Sawyer clarifies NASCAR’s stance in penalizing Christopher Bell in controversial Martinsville finish

After the controversial end to the round of eight's last race, Jeff Gluck asked NASCAR Vice President Elton Sawyer why only Christopher Bell was penalized and not the Chevy drivers. After points tied between William Byron and Bell, the Stock Car Association slammed the #20 driver with a penalty, knocking him out of the final race of the 2024 season.

The NASCAR insider questioned Sawyer about the primary focus while the association decided to hand Bell a penalty at the Xfinity 500 held on November 3, 2024. The Stock Car Association VP replied: "A big question."

Elton Sawyer highlighted that the #20 driver got up against the guardrails and rode them, imitating Ross Chastain's Hail Melon from 2022, which is strictly banned according to NASCAR's guidelines. He added:

"If you look at the other situations that were going, 23, the cars behind the 24, really no bearing at this time. We'll look at those at a later time."

Jeff Gluck asked one more question: if Bell didn't make contact with the walls, would he be in the Championship 4 round, and all the other stuff, including Bubba Wallace and slowing down for Bell and the Chevy drivers, would not matter?

NASCAR VP replied, "hypotheticals is really difficult" and added that he doesn't want to make statements based on "ifs, ands, and buts." He added:

"Like I said, the main focus for us in the tower, when the situation happened, was focusing on the 20 car. Let's figure out where are we at there. To me and our team there was focus more on that than the other stuff. The other stuff was there; don't get me wrong. The 20 rose to the level that, We got to figure this one out pretty quick."

Christopher Bell finished in P18 before Sawyer slammed him with a penalty. After the NASCAR VP's decision, Bell fell four places and ended up in P22, shattering his chances to compete in the Championship 4 round.

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NASCAR's VP Elton Sawyer explains the controversial safety car decision at the Talladega Superspeedway

The Talladega Superspeedway witnessed one of the biggest wrecks in the history of NextGen racing, collecting 28 cars, and the race was hit by a controversial caution car decision. In a post-race interview with NASCAR insider Bob Pockrass, Elton Sawyer explained the reason behind the caution car decision.

In the third and final stage of the race, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. fought for the lead with Austin Cindric, and a slight contact on the rear end by Brad Keselowski spun Cindric and caused the biggest wreck of all time in the modern era of NASCAR.

Fans argue that the Stock Car Association's official should have thrown a red flag followed by a yellow, and the caution cars should have been deployed after such a massive wreck. The delay gave some teams more time than the DVP policy to work on their cars.

Elton Sawyer said about this:

"We had all intentions to roll the caution vehicle as soon as we pulled the red and displayed the yellow. The race director noticed some things that were still going on down in Turn 3 where he couldn’t do that restart. Cars were still moving, we still had safety equipment that was still moving around there. So just for the safety of all, held the caution vehicle for a little longer."

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. won the race in the late restart, and Brad Keselowski came in second place, followed by William Byron.