THE MODERATOR: We're now joined by NASCAR senior vice president of competition, Elton Sawyer.
Elton, before we get to questions, talk us through that race, outstanding wild finish.
ELTON SAWYER: Yeah, I don't think we could have picked a better setting, Martinsville, Virginia, 500 laps. Goodyear brought a great tire. You have the 11 car starting at the back, working his way up. Got a lot of passing, different strategies.
What Ryan Blaney did today shows the real grit of a champion like he is. If you go back to last year, I think he finished second at Homestead, came to Martinsville, won the race. We know what happened in Phoenix.
Excited to get to Phoenix next week. Thought our competitors, the Playoff system, I would say it has delivered. It puts these guys on ten tents and they have to bring their A game every week.
A fan watching today, you saw everything you wanted to see.
THE MODERATOR: Questions for Elton.
Q. Can you take us through the review process on what determined the safety violation that Bell was assessed.
ELTON SAWYER: Yeah, obviously we look at all the video. As I back up on that, you go back two years ago when we had the situation with Ross here. We went to Phoenix. 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. We were able to get through Phoenix and had a great championship race that year.
In the off-season meeting with the industry, meeting with our drivers, and to a man that was not a move that they want to have to make. There was language in the rule back. When you look at it today, clearly got up against the fence there in three and four, and rode the fans all the way off four there.
Strictly it's to protect our drivers as well as our fans. So yeah, it was pretty straightforward.
Q. Was the primary focus in race control just on the safety violation? Were you looking at Bubba's slowing at that point or the Chevy drivers --
ELTON SAWYER: A big question.
No, if you look at the other situations that were going, 23, the cars behind the 24, really no bearing at this time. We'll look at those at a later time. When you really just dissect exactly what happened, look at the situation with the 20 getting up against the fence, then riding the fence, which we clearly stated in our statement after Ross did that, that that would not be accepted.
Q. As you move to next week at Phoenix, is there anything you have to do in the next few days to avoid a situation like tonight, waiting for results, a determination, so there is no question when things end Sunday night who the champion is?
ELTON SAWYER: Yeah, that's a great question.
No different this week than any other week. We'll have our debriefings the first of the week. We go over things we did well, the things we didn't do so well, what we're going to do going forward.
We'll dissect this race, look at it. We'll make sure our team is ready to go when we get to Phoenix next week, as we did after Homestead last week coming into this weekend.
We'll have those meetings starting tomorrow, and we'll be ready as a sanctioning body to get out there. We have four very deserving potential champions going out there racing for a championship.
Looking forward to getting out there. As I said earlier, I think it's going to be a great three days there with our Trucks, Xfinity and Cup on Sunday. The table is set for one of the best championship weekends we've had in a long time.
Q. Joe Gibbs said they couldn't protest. That is true?
ELTON SAWYER: It's a race violation. Race violation, you don't protest them. It's not appealable, I should say. No different than an uncontrolled tire or too many men over the wall or anything like that.
Q. Christopher Bell said this was not on purpose. He didn't mean to ride the wall. He hit the wall. He didn't feel like he made an unsafe move. Did you feel like he did that on purpose to gain position?
ELTON SAWYER: Yeah, I'm not going to speculate on what Christopher did or said what he meant to do. That wouldn't be fair to try to make that type of decision based off that.
We looked at the data. We looked at video. We've been very clear, based off our conversations with our industry, based off that move two years ago, that that would not be tolerated.
Q. Are you going to be looking at anything additional about the 23 and the Chevy cars at all?
ELTON SAWYER: Yeah, we'll look at everything. As I said earlier, we want to go back, as we would have done anyway. We'll get back, we'll take all the data, video. We'll listen to in-car audio. We'll do all that, as we would any event.
Q. If something is deemed inappropriate, a potential penalty would be possible?
ELTON SAWYER: As I said, we'll look at it.
Q. If you're just looking at the Bell wall thing, nothing else, 27 minutes I think it was, can you explain the time frame, why it was so long?
ELTON SAWYER: We want to get it right, first and foremost. This is not something that happens every week. We want to be prepared.
I thought our team in the tower did exactly what we needed to do. Let's get this right. Fortunately we don't have it every week. It is something that we'll go back and figure out if we could have made that decision faster, for sure. I didn't know it took -- you could have told me it took five minutes or 55. I don't know.
Q. What are the emotions that you're feeling? Frustrated? Kind of dismayed? We had a great race, a great story with Ryan. Here you guys are having to make that kind of call.
ELTON SAWYER: Yeah, I think the big thing, again, as you look at the totality of the event, you look from start to finish, there's a lot of positives that come out of today. Again, Ryan, defending champion, the drive that he had, the cars that he had to pass. You think about the stress that that race team was under, like a lot of 'em.
I think there's this tremendous amount of positive that comes out of this.
I would prefer not to be sitting here, although I think a lot of you folks, but I would prefer to be out in the garage right now.
But this is part of it. This is the role that as a sanctioning body, that we have to make sure it's an equitable playing field. And just based off the move that was made two years ago, we just felt like this was the call that had to be made. We stand by that and feel like it was the right call.
Q. I wanted to make sure I'm not putting words in your mouth. You said the focus was on just looking at the wall ride. If he doesn't do the wall ride, regardless of whatever what happens, he's in? If he makes the pass without hitting the wall, the Bubba stuff, the Chevy stuff aside, he would be in as of now? Is that fair?
ELTON SAWYER: The hypotheticals is really difficult. I don't want to be making statements of things, ifs, ands and buts. I don't want to do that.
Like I said, the main focus for us in the tower, when the situation happened, was focusing on the 20 car. Let's figure out where are we at there. To me and our team there was focus more on that than the other stuff.
The other stuff was there, don't get me wrong. The 20 rose to the level that, We got to figure this one out pretty quick.
Q. For years we've had teams say when they're not in the Playoffs, We're going to do the best to help our teammate. I'm sure that's what you'll be talking about next week. Is there a clear line about teams helping teams and what they're allowed to do in a Playoff situation and what they're not allowed to do to help each other on the same team?
ELTON SAWYER: Yeah, 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. When you get in the Playoffs and then you have this 10-race stretch, you start eliminating drivers, obviously roles are different.
When you get here, there's eight drivers, we had two guys that were locked in, six guys going for two spots, so there's a lot going on.
Again, I think our format has delivered. It's given us the excitement, given our fans the excitement that we've asked for. When you have that, from time to time you're going to have situations like we had today.
These guys are the best in the world. They're going to give it everything they have, the passion that they have to go out day in and day out and 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.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you for your time.
ELTON SAWYER: Thank you. See you in Phoenix.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports