As laps came to a close in Sunday’s XFINITY 500 race at Martinsville Speedway, cameras focused on race leader Ryan Blaney and postseason drivers William Byron and Christopher Bell as they battled to determine which of them would advance to the Championship 4.

Byron and Bell were the main characters in this story and went through the final 15 rounds of Sunday’s event with just one point between them. But there are some background characters that definitely don’t go unnoticed.

Whether intentional or not, Bubba Wallace (No. 23), Austin Dillon (No. 3) and Ross Chastain (No. 1) played a role in the outcome of the event.

Wallace drives a Toyota-backed entry for 23XI Racing, which has a relationship with Joe Gibbs Racing, which fields Christopher Bell’s No. 20 team. Meanwhile, both Dillon and Chastain race for Chevrolet-backed organizations Richard Childress Racing and Trackhouse Racing.

NASCAR Senior Vice President of Competition Elton Sawyer said at the post-race press conference that the sanctioning body will review the post-race actions at Martinsville and decide whether additional penalties are warranted.

“Yes, we’ll look at everything,” Sawyer said. “As I said before, we want to go back, as we would have done anyway. We will go back, we will get all the data, the videos. We will listen to the in-car audio. We will do everything.” “As in every case.”

But Sawyer says the 27-minute deliberation after the checkered flag was solely to decide whether Bell would be penalized for riding the outside wall; this penalty option became possible after Ross Chastain’s ‘Hail Melon’ in Fall 2022.

So what exactly happened that made everyone so suspicious of the three drivers who failed to make the play-offs?

In the closing stages of Sunday’s event, William Byron was fading away as his No. 24 Liberty University Chevrolet suffered damage from an earlier incident with Blaney and Shane Van Gisbergen that knocked his toe off and ended his long-distance speed.

With 15 laps to go, Byron fell to sixth place. Since Bell was in 18th place and was not on the leading lap, the difference between them was reduced to only one point. Austin Dillon and Ross Chastain were sitting in seventh and eighth when this pass was made, and they double-ran their Chevrolet Camaro entry and parked it behind the No. 24 to prevent any progress.

Byron finished sixth, followed by Dillon and Chastain. But it was clear that No. 24 was keeping the team afloat as Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano, Noah Gragson, Shane Van Gisbergen and Alex Bowman were shut down by the end of the war.

In the same time period, approximately five minutes of “anomalous radio communication” In the incident between Austin Dillon, crew chief Justin Alexander and scout Brandon Benesch, the three parties were heard arguing about the status of the No. 24’s postseason run and the “plan,” with Ross Chastain and the crew discussing the “plan.” Chef Phil Surgen was aware of the plan.

“If we pass him, he’s out of the race,” says a crew member of the No. 3 Chevrolet in the final laps of the race. At this point Dillon comes back and asks his team who Byron is racing against. “Keep me updated on this deal if it changes, Justin (Alexander),” says another crew member, supposedly the lookout.

As for the No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet, radio communications The confrontation between Ross Chastain, crew chief Phil Surgen and spotter Brandon McReynolds shows no signs of foul play. The team’s only real suspicion comes when they (Chastain and Surgen) interfere with the No. 3 team’s communications while asking if they (Chastain and Surgen) are aware of the plan.

At the other end of the racetrack, carefully watching Byron and the Talladega-sized pack chasing him, Bubba Wallace was struggling with his first car a lap in the No. 23 XFINITY Toyota Camry XSE from 18th. below and just one row ahead of Christopher Bell.

Nowhere is the radio communication between Wallace, crew chief Bootie Barker and spotter Freddie Kraft more abysmal than with the Richard Childress Racing team. but what happened in the final rounds of the event is likely open to interpretation.

Wallace can be heard saying on the radio, “God forbid we don’t help Joe Gibbs Racing’s car,” but he’s right behind Martin Truex, Jr., driver of the No. 23, and a couple. The lap count was later surpassed by team owner Denny Hamlin.

Even though he said “Fight 24 (Byron) with all your might” as his crew approached him from behind. At this point in the race, Wallace is still one point ahead of Bell, and the gap between the #24 and #20 teams is just one point.

With three laps to go, Wallace keys in on the radio and says, “I think I’ve got a flat tire.” At this point, the dashcam shows the No. 23 swaying a lot in the corners, as if it were actually going down a tire as it ran into the second or sometimes third lane.

The 23XI Racing rider’s pace slows significantly over the final three laps of the race, falling a second or more behind the pace he had set a few minutes earlier. Wallace continues to lose time and on the final lap he is passed by a huge pack of race cars, including Christopher Bell.

On the final lap of the race, Wallace was allowing the pack of cars to pass on the inside when the Joe Gibbs Racing driver jumped into Turn 3 and touched the side of the No. 23 Toyota Camry XSE, sending both cars onto the racetrack. Bell crashes into the outside wall, where he decides to step on the accelerator and ride the wall.

After the incident, the team asks Wallace if he needs a fire extinguisher to put out the fire – his 23XI Racing teammate Tyler Reddick had started a fire under the hood of his race car, causing him to retire from the race early.

Whatever the actions of these three drivers, they made an impact on the outcome of the event and the championship; After Christopher Bell was given a safety penalty for driving, Byron remained sixth and moved up to Championship 4. wall.

In the coming days, NASCAR will investigate radio communications, SMT Data, in-car cameras and any information they can get and decide whether the sanctioning body should impose some penalties for race manipulation. Be big.