NASCAR's Elton Sawyer weighs in on teaming, collusion after controversial Martinsville finish

NASCAR’s final playoff race in the Round of 8 was fraught with controversy after Christopher Bell was assessed a safety violation for riding the wall, knocking him out of the final playoff spot in the Championship 4.

It wasn’t just Bell’s wall ride that was in question, though.

During the final lap of the race it also certainly appeared that Chevrolet drivers Austin Dillon and Ross Chastain actively blocked the track behind William Byron (also a Chevrolet driver) to keep him from ceding valuable points as Bell closed in.

Bell called out Dillon and Chastain for ‘manipulating the race’ in a post-race interview.

Meanwhile, there was an equally questionable pass made on Bubba Wallace by Bell himself. Wallace appeared to slow considerably, allowing Bell to pass him and temporarily tie Byron on points.

Wallace said after the race he felt like he had a tire going down.

Still, the ethics of team play and collusion came fully under the spotlight. NASCAR senior vice president of competition Elton Sawyer took the stage after the controversial finish to address what NASCAR can do to prevent teaming when everything is on the line.

“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,” Sawyer said. “And when you get in the playoffs and you have this 10-race stretch and then you start eliminating drivers, obviously roles are different. And then when you get here and there’s eight drivers — we had two guys that were locked in — there’s six guys going for two spots, so there’s a lot going on.”

NASCAR said that it would review the footage and the crew audio from the race as it typically does, making sure nothing that happened was untoward.

And despite the potential collusion on multiple fronts, the race itself was thrilling. Sawyer defended NASCAR on that front as he vowed to look at everything from Sunday’s race at Martinsville.

“Again, I think our format has delivered,” he said. “It’s given us the excitement, given our fans the excitement that we’ve asked for. And when you have that, from time to time you’re going to have situations like we had today because these guys are the best in the world and they’re going to give it everything they have and the passion they have to go in day-in and day-out to 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.”