CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The NASCAR Cup Series playoffs will end next Sunday with the championship race at Phoenix.
Four drivers will compete for the title while the rest of the field races in the event hoping to end the year on a good note. The four competitors with a shot at the 2024 title qualified for the event with wins in the regular season and clutch performances in the playoffs.
Three drivers who will not compete for the title are Kyle Larson, Chase Elliott, and Christopher Bell -- who accumulated the most points this season.
Each of those drivers had a chance to advance to the championship race in the final cutoff race on Sunday at Martinsville. Larson led with under 30 laps to go, Elliott led with under 15 laps to go, and Bell earned enough points before a safety violation penalty left him out of the championship picture.
A move by Bell on the last lap left a state of controversy for NASCAR and its playoff format. Bell passed Bubba Wallace for 18th on the last lap and kept his foot on the gas after making contact with the wall. NASCAR penalized Bell for the move, saying it was a safety violation. NASCAR penalized that kind of move after Ross Chastain did a similar thing to make it to the championship race in 2022.
"There was a lot of dialogue with the drivers that that’s not a move that we want to have to make on the last lap," Elton Sawyer, NASCAR's senior vice president of competition said. "Strictly it’s to protect our drivers as well as our fans. So yeah, it was pretty straightforward."
The penalty pushed Bell from 18th to 22nd, four points behind William Byron for the final championship spot. Bell believed the wall ride was not intentional but a response to contact with Wallace in the process of the pass. Sawyer said they looked at data instead of relying on Bell's interpretation.
“I understand that the rule is made to prevent people from riding the wall, but my move was completely different from what Ross did,” said Bell. “I didn’t intentionally floor it and go into the fence — I slipped into the wall.”
Even more controversy surrounded other drivers involved in the situation. Wallace, a Toyota driver, suspiciously fell way off the pace on the closing laps before Bell passed him in his Toyota. Scanner audio from Wallace's team revealed a tire was going down on his car. Meanwhile, Chevrolet drivers Austin Dillon and Ross Chastain gained enough pace to reach Byron's bumper in the closing laps but never passed him. Audio from Dillon's team revealed conversations about a "deal" to seemingly not pass Byron.
Sawyer said this audio was not used to determine Bell's penalty. He said NASCAR will review the audio throughout the week to determine if further action will be taken but he couldn't share what that action would specifically be.
Byron was appeased with the NASCAR decision.
“He rode the wall and there’s a clear rule against riding the wall," Byron said. "So in my eyes, that’s what counts. If it happened in the past, it was fair game. But now the rule is against it.”
The Bell penalty leaves three major contenders without a chance to win the NASCAR title this season.
In a full-season points championship, Larson would be leading the series by 25 points over Elliott and 32 points over Bell, assuming results would be the same. Byron would be fourth while fellow Championship 4 driver Tyler Reddick would be fifth. Ryan Blaney, who won at Martinsville to lock himself into the championship field, would be sixth and Joey Logano would be a distant 14th.
Since NASCAR implemented the playoff system in 2014, the lowest driver in points to make the championship race was Kyle Busch in 2015. Busch, who won the championship that year, would have been 20th in the points that season. He missed 11 races that year due to an injury but was granted a waiver to qualify for the playoffs.
The lowest driver to make the title race after racing a full-time season before Logano was Denny Hamlin, who qualified for the 2014 championship race while he would have finished 13th in the points standings.
Larson, who hypothetically would be the points leader, is the fourth driver to not qualify for the championship race after ending the year with the most points.
This is the first year that none of the top three drivers in points will miss the championship race.
Bell had a spectacular playoff performance before Martinsville. His average finish of 5.5 in the first eight playoff races was by far the best in the series. He entered Martinsville 22 points ahead of Byron but an early spin trapped him behind for most of the day.
Larson won a series-high six races and lost the regular season title by a single point this season. He entered Martinsville seven points behind Byron after two finishes outside the top 10 in the Round of 8.
"I don't want to say there's anything wrong with the format, you just can't have two bad races in the Round of 8," Larson said in an interview with Fronstretch after the race.
Elliott has only one win this season but his consistency kept him afloat heading into Martinsville. He leads the series with an average finish of 11.8. A DNF at Las Vegas left Elliott in a must-win situation at Martinsville.
Although playoff circumstances will prevent these drivers from competing for a title, they can still look at 2024 as a successful one with hard work from their team.
The NASCAR Championship race is on Sunday, Nov. 10 at Phoenix. The race is on NBC at 3 p.m. ET.