Amidst the drama of the Joe Gibbs Racing driver riding the wall, there was consternation over what appeared to be manufacturer-influenced gamesmanship.
Bell’s desperate attempt to pass Bubba Wallace for 18th was due in large part to William Byron sitting pretty sixth with the benefit of support from fellow Chevrolet drivers.
With Bell in 19th and Byron sixth, the Hendrick Motorsports driver couldn’t afford to lose another position.
In the closing laps, Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Dillon and Ross Chastain of Trackhouse Racing drove side-by-side.
Despite appearing to have more speed than Byron, neither sought to put a pass on the #24 Chevrolet Camaro.
Ford drivers Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano tried to made headway but couldn’t get by either Dillon or Chastain.
Radio transmissions replayed after the race seemed to suggest a level of collusion among the Chevrolet teams.
“Does he know that deal?” said Dillon on his radio, in reference to Chastain.
Dillon’s crew chief replied, “I’m just trying to find them to tell them. Does the #1 crew chief know the deal?” to which another RCR member replied, “Yeah, he should.”
Chastain’s spotter can be heard on his radio saying, “Nice and smart with the #24 here. The #24 is one to the good, one point to the good.”
Speaking on the radio chatter, NASCAR senior vice president of competition, Elton Sawyer, said the category would look into the matter.
“We watched that. We’re going to take a deeper dive into that, look at the data, look at things like that,” he said.
“We’ll look at everything. As I said earlier, we want to go back, as we would have done anyway.
“We’ll get back, we’ll take all the data, video. We’ll listen to in-car audio. We’ll do all that, as we would any event.”
Asked if a penalty would be possible if anything was deemed inappropriate, Sawyer replied, “As I said, we’ll look at it.”
Sawyer was asked about whether there was a “clear line” about teams not in the playoffs helping other teams fighting for the championship and whether that was allowed.
“I think when you look at it, again, from a 30,000-foot view, you want our teams to show up, every one of them to give the best effort they can to go out and try to win the race,” said Sawyer.
“When you get in the Playoffs and then you have this 10-race stretch, you start eliminating drivers, obviously roles are different.
“When you get here, there’s eight drivers, we had two guys that were locked in, six guys going for two spots, so there’s a lot going on.
“Again, I think our format has delivered. It’s given us the excitement, given our fans the excitement that we’ve asked for. When you have that, from time to time you’re going to have situations like we had today.
“These guys are the best in the world. They’re going to give it everything they have, the passion that they have to go out day in and day out and try to win races and win championships.
“With that, again, we’ll go back and we’ll download with our team and see how we could have responded quicker to get the answers that you guys are looking for.”
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