NASCAR standings shift as Bubba Wallace, Ross Chastain, and Austin Dillon drop after Martinsville penalties

NASCAR has fined Bubba Wallace, Austin Dillon, and Ross Chastain $100,000 each, besides docking 50 driver points, following the controversial final laps at Martinsville Speedway last Sunday.

During the closing laps, Chastain and Dillon drove behind Hendrick Motorsports driver William Byron (running sixth at the time) in a blockade but never attempted to pass him. With one lap to go, Wallace seemed to slow down reporting a potential tire fall. This allowed his fellow manufacturer driver Christopher Bell to pass him and take the 18th spot in traffic.

NASCAR viewed the aforesaid cases as instances of race manipulation. The verdict that came out on Tuesday said the drivers had violated “sections 4.4.B&D: NASCAR Member Conduct of the Rule Book”, which states “actions detrimental to stock car racing along with race manipulation.” (Reuters)

Given the point deduction, the positions of Wallace and Dillon in the driver standings have changed significantly. Chastain’s spot, however, remains unchanged.

In a recent post on X (formerly known as Twitter), Jeff Gluck of The Athletic reported on the situation and said:

“After 50-point penalties:

-- Wallace falls from 17th to 18th in the point standings

-- Chastain remains 19th, no change

-- Dillon drops from 28th to 33rd”

All three teams have decided to appeal to NASCAR. Safe to say, Dillon had the most to lose due to the penalty. In his last three starts ahead of Martinsville, the Chevy star finished 21st or worse on seven occasions. Furthermore, his lone win of the season at Richmond didn’t get him an automatic playoff berth, making his hopes to win his first Cup Series championship even bleaker.

Bubba Wallace is winless this season. Chastain, on the other hand, has one win to his credit, which came at Kansas Speedway in September. However, he fell out of the playoff picture a few weeks later at Darlington despite delivering a top-5 performance.

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Denny Hamlin acquits 23XI Racing and Joe Gibbs Racing of NASCAR race-manipulating accusations

Denny Hamlin, along with NBA star Michael Jordan, owns the team that Bubba Wallace drives for, 23XI Racing. The South Carolina-based race team, which has had an alliance with Joe Gibbs Racing since its inception, is one of the newer teams in the NASCAR Cup Series.

Despite the alliance, the big-shot Toyota team had not asked for any help from 23XI Racing over the past week. Reconfirming the same in a recent episode of his Actions Detrimental podcast, Hamlin said:

“The only thing I can tell you for a fact, because I am part of the Toyota Racing, is Toyota Racing never, not once this week, told 23XI to do anything for JGR. They were not involved whatsoever. I don’t think I’ve ever been part of a conversation saying, ‘If this happens then you have to do this.’ They’ve never said that as a manufacturer. Even on superspeedways.”

“They’ve left it up to the teams, ‘You guys figure this out. We’re going to provide you what we provide you, but we hope you work together,’ but that’s it. There’s never been any rules that Toyota has laid out to say, ‘This is what we want you to do.’ ” he added.

This leaves one wondering if Bubba Wallace was wrongfully penalized by NASCAR. The situation might get clearer once NASCAR addresses the appeal made by the teams.

As per journalist Bob Pockrass, NASCAR will likely hear the appeals this week itself.