“You have to penalize him”: Bubba Wallace’s spotter not buying Brad Keselowski’s confidant’s explanation on JGR driver’s fiasco

The last race of the round of eight race ended controversially after Christopher Bell was penalized for overtaking Bubba Wallace with a banned move on the final lap. The controversy amassed a lot of attention worldwide, and NASCAR VP Elton Sawyer stepped forward to explain the reason behind the decision.

The Joe Gibbs Racing driver rode the wall, executing a Hail Melon-style move in the last lap while overtaking the 23XI Racing driver. The move was first executed by Ross Chastain on the same track in 2022, and since then NASCAR has banned the move.

Recently, in an episode of the Dirty Mo Media podcast, Bubba Wallace's spotter, Freddie Craft, and Brad Keselowski’s spotter, TJ Majors, engaged in a conversation on the topic, and Craft opposed Majors' take on the incident.

Everyone except TJ Majors agreed with Bubba Wallace's spotter that NASCAR's decision to award Christopher Bell a penalty was correct. Majors explained that it is difficult to control the car at Martinsville Speedway corners, and if you once make contact with the wall, it's "super hard to get off."

However, Brad Keselowski's spotter did not believe in Bubba Wallace's spotter's explanation and said:

"I think you have to penalize them. I think it's; it's much different. I don't think it's anything even remotely close to what Ross did. But again, if you give us an inch, we're going to take 10 miles." [00:26]

The podcasters concluded and agreed that Hendrick Motorsports driver William Byron didn't do anything wrong in the whole scenario.

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Kenny Wallace criticized NASCAR for penalizing Christopher Bell

The Joe Gibbs racing driver dominated the playoff standings with his unique performance and now lost the chance to compete in the Championship 4 round. Bell had a rough start at the Xfinity 500 and began the race in P16. He even fell five spots in Stage 1 of the race, finishing in 21st position. However, he made a significant recovery in Stage 2 of the race and finished in sixth. But everything went south after the #20 driver made Ross Chastain's Hail Melon-style move to clinch fourth place, overtaking Bubba Wallace.

This penalty affected Joe Gibbs Racing's overall standings; Bell dropped from P18 to P22, which shattered his chances of advancing to the Championship 4 round. The controversial end to the race caught NASCAR analyst and journalist Kenny Wallace's attention, and he expressed his take on the scenario on his podcast Coffee with Kenny.

"Obviously the race was just going normal and the last corner of the race. So we ran 500 laps, and it was the last corner. And it really wasn't even the corner. It was very exciting, but nobody likes the ruling. That's what it's all about. And the ruling was you cannot ride the wall," Wallace said (4:08 onward).

"So when Ross Chastain rode the wall, everybody agreed, don't do that anymore. Everybody agreed because ain't no way anybody's ever gonna do that again. And Lord, whoever saw this coming, whoever saw, my opinion is Christopher Bell got in, got underneath Bubba, got loose, got to the wall, panicked, thought Bubba was gonna try to pass him. I don't think the message got to Christopher that Bubba was letting him go," he added, explaining the situation (4:39 onward).

William Byron advanced in place of Christopher Bell and will compete among the top four drivers, including Joey Logano, Ryan Blaney, and Tyler Reddick.