There was a bit of mischief going on with several teams during the Cup Series race at Martinsville on November 3rd, 2024. Two NASCAR Chevy teams – the No. 1 Chevy Camaro ZL1 of Ross Chastain and the No. 3 Camaro of Austin Dillon – pointedly blocked traffic to keep William Byron’s No. 24 Camaro ahead of the competition. In-car audio revealed that Dillon and Chastain had been told to interfere with the race to keep Byron in championship contention, prompting officials to launch an investigation. Now, a verdict has been reached, and both drivers were handed penalties for their actions.
As per the penalty report from NASCAR, Dillon, Chastain, and the No. 23 Toyota TRD Camry of Bubba Wallace were each penalized for violating sections 4.4.B&D: NASCAR Member Conduct of the Rule Book, which refers to race manipulation and actions detrimental to stock car racing. Each driver had 50 driver points deducted and fined $100,000. The owners of NASCAR Chevy teams Trackhouse Racing and Richard Childress Racing (RCR), as well as Toyota team 23XI Racing, were also fined $100,000 each and deducted 50 owner points.
In addition, crew chiefs Phil Surgen (No. 1 Chevy), Justin Alexander (No. 3 Chevy), and Bootie Barker (No. 23 Toyota) were suspended, as were their respective spotters, Brandon McReynolds, Brandon Benesch, and Freddie Kraft. Team executives Tony Lunders, Keith Rodden, and Dave Rogers were also suspended for a single race. None of these team members will join their teams for the season-ending race at Phoenix Raceway on November 10th.
Trackhouse, RCR, and 23XI have indicated that they will appeal the penalties.
“We took and looked at the most recent penalty that we had written for an infraction, very similar, which was the 41 car a couple of years ago at the Roval,” NASCAR Senior VP of Competition Elton Sawyer said. “We felt like we wanted to ramp this one up and we did, we did that in a way that we included team leadership. And this one, something that we feel like that, you know, we want to get our point across that it’s a responsibility of all of us, the team owners, the team leadership as well as ourselves here at NASCAR to uphold the integrity of our sport.”
Comments
Penalize the crap out them. I helped crew on a professional race car decades ago and we finished second in the series. At the awards banquet we found out (by admission) that the series winner had been running cheater (larger than allowed displacement) engines all year. Obviously, scrutineering wasn’t what it should have been. It hurt the driver/team owner that I worked for in his quest to get to the Indy series. IMHO, NASCAR should also put those teams at the back of the pack for the start of that last race.
My local short track comes down harder on teams that do this …. just saying.
Let them race! If my buddy needed the points and I was already in, i would have done the same thing.
This has happened for decades, nothing new here.
As long as there is racing, cheating will exist. If you don’t get caught, is it cheating???
Who cares NASCAR ruined themselves with stage racing. And catering to the west coast crowd.
West coast crowd? What does that even mean lol
They should not have broadcasted it over there radios to be heard or recorded.
Nobody ever claimed dillon’s team was smart lol
All a result of stupid point system.