Ryan Blaney won at Martinsville to get back into contention for the title.

A year after Blaney won at the half-mile short track a week before winning his first career Cup title, Blaney won again at Martinsville on Sunday to secure a spot in the final four.

Blaney passed Chase Elliott with 15 laps remaining and will compete for the title with teammate Penske, Joey Logano, Tyler Reddick and Christopher Bell, who bounced off the wall on the final lap as he passed a slowing Bubba Wallace to sneak in. in the final. four ahead of William Byron.

Or so we thought.

It took several minutes for NASCAR to determine the running order after the race because the sanctioning body prohibited drivers from riding the wall to gain positions at Martinsville following Ross Chastain’s incredible move in 2022. Wallace said he slowed down in the last few minutes. laps because I had a running tire. below.

The Chevy guys behind Byron also made it clear that they weren’t going to pass him. Byron had Ross Chastain and Austin Dillon behind him during the final laps of the race, and although it appeared that both drivers had more speed than Byron, neither driver broke away to try to pass Byron for sixth.

Bell’s pass to Wallace meant that Bell and Byron were tied in the points standings for fourth and final place in the title race. But NASCAR ruled that Bell had committed a “safety violation” by climbing the wall as he did.

“I don’t know what to say, I don’t know. I don’t know what to say,” Bell said after NASCAR’s decision was made.

“My movement was completely different from Ross’s.”

You are right. Bell ran out of gas before hitting the wall. Chastain deliberately slammed him into the wall to go faster.

The moments of waiting, and the apparent manipulation of the race that preceded them, overshadowed Blaney’s key victory. He passed Elliott nine laps after Elliott passed Hendrick Motorsports teammate Kyle Larson for the lead. Larson, who leads all Cup drivers with six wins, is out of the playoffs along with Bell, Denny Hamlin and Elliott.

Bell was officially relegated to the last car one lap back in 22nd place after NASCAR’s decision. Officially, he misses the title race by four points compared to Byron.

Blaney is clutch again

Blaney had to win at Martinsville a year ago to have a shot at the title. He couldn’t achieve it on points. On Sunday he was in a similar situation.

And he complied. Blaney led only three times over 32 laps, but had a fast car all day and ran near the front of the field. He even overcame losing two boats in a bizarre late-race event when NASCAR threw the green flag when a wheel on Kyle Busch’s car bounced on the track.

Busch’s wheel fell off before the race went green with less than 100 laps remaining. But NASCAR went ahead and restarted the race anyway, apparently without seeing the wheel on the track. The race was green for a few seconds before NASCAR raised the yellow flag again.

The easiest decision would have been to keep the restart order the same and just start over. Instead, NASCAR said the order in which the cars crossed the start/finish line was the official racing order.

That didn’t matter to Blaney. He had pitted during the previous yellow flag and his tire advantage proved critical in the closing laps.

Race results

1. Ryan Blaney

2. Chase Elliott

3. Kyle Larson

4. Austin Cindric

5. Denny Hamlin

6. William Byron

7.Austin Dillon

8. Ross Chastain

9. Brad Keselowski

10. Joey Logano

11. Noah Grayson

12. Shane van Gisbergen

13. Alex Bowman

14. Ryan Preece

15. Chase Briscoe

16. Josh Berry

17. Daniel Henric

18. Bubba Wallace

19. Erik Jones

20. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

21. Zane Smith

22. Christopher Bell

23. Daniel Suarez

24. Martin Truex Jr.

25. Carson however

26. Todd Gilliland

27. Kaz Grala

28. Kyle Busch

29. Justin Haley

30. Chris Buescher

31. John Hunter Nemechek

32. Ty Gibbs

33. Michael McDowell

34. Tyler Reddick

35. Corey LaJoie

36.Harrison Burton

37. Josh Bilicki