In the fallout of the NASCAR Cup Series Round of 12 Elimination race at the Charlotte ROVAL, fans are turning to suspicious radio chatter from Ford’s Cole Custer and Chevrolet’s Alex Bowman, as clues to Sunday’s dramatic finish came to be.
Coming to the finish of the NASCAR Cup Series race at the Charlotte ROVAL, no one was focused on leader Shane van Gisbergen, who, via a risky call late in the race, found himself with a massive lead of almost 18 seconds over second place.
Instead, attention fell to the cutline for the Round of Eight, with Ross Chastain and Joey Logano battling it out.
Although this was not a head-to-head battle, if Chastain lost his 18th-place position or Logano passed someone, Logano would advance on a tiebreaker. Conversely, if Chastain maintained his position or someone passed Logano, Chastain would advance by a point.
While Ford Teammate Cole Custer pursued Logano 22nd, often meeting Logano’s rear bumper, throughout the final lap, Chastain would lose his spot in the turn seven hairpin to Denny Hamlin, and narrowly, but not ultimately, passed by Alex Bowman.
Coming to the finish, Logano would finish in front of Custer, but Chastain sent Hamlin flying in a last-ditch effort to regain his spot and his championship aspirations. However, we now know that this infamous moment did not help Chastain regain 18th place.
A similar situation occurred in last year’s cutoff race at Martinsville, with William Byron and Christopher Bell, in different parts of the track, needing to either gain a position or maintain their position to advance to the Championship Four.
Although that race is more remembered for the somewhat blatant race manipulation seen, with Toyota driver Bubba Wallace almost coming to a complete stop in the final turn to allow Bell to pass. At the same time, Chevrolet’s Chastain and Austin Dillon ran a blockade for Byron.
Earlier this season, after NASCAR Officials stated they were “pissed off” about this apparent OEM interference, NASCAR implemented a shift in rules regarding team/OEM orders. These potential penalties added to the rulebook include “loss of Manufacturers Points, and/or loss of wind tunnel hours, and/or loss of RCFD runs.”
Given the nature of the finish at the ROVAL and the clear similarity to last fall’s situation, fans listened to the radio chatter between Custer, who did not pass Logano, and Bowman, who did not pass Chastain on the final lap.
What’s Happening? Following the NASCAR Round of Eight cutoff race at Martinsville, NASCAR has suspended the Executives, Spotters, and Crew Chiefs…
So what did they find? Well, per footage posted to X by Steven Taranto of CBS Sports, even though Custer was mere inches away from Logano at times with less than five laps to go, the driver of the No. 41 was being warned to take it “nice and easy” and to “save our tires here for a late race restart.”
While this may not seem as suspicious as Martinsville, it did raise some red flags with the fanbase, with users such as @DennyDelivers2 responding with a reference to the 2022 ROVAL race, “if I had a nickel for every time Cole Custer was involved with manufacturer manipulation at the ROVAL…”
But the No. 41 team isn’t the only one raising suspicions, as a review of Bowman’s (who did not pass Chastain until the No. 1 was literally backwards) in car footage and audio, being told immediately after not passing Chastain, who, mind you, ran wide in turn seven, “take care of your tires,” because thats what drivers from 18th to 22nd were mostly worried about on the final lap.
So, is this obvious race manipulation? Well, of course not, at no point did the teams discuss points, scenarios, or the implications of such passes. Although the need to save tires had played into Sunday’s race, it is still very interesting that both were told to save with just a few laps left, even though they never used that last bit of tire to make a pass.
Suppose these were pre-discussed code words between the teams, as some have suspected. In that case, even though ‘save your tires’ was low-hanging fruit for a race with hefty tire fall-off, it’s almost funny that both OEMs would have technically been using similar terminology to warn their drivers of playoff-affecting passes.
As of press time, NASCAR has not commented on this footage, and, for the most part, the cutoff for the Round of Eight is old news, as the No. 22 team continues another improbable run at the championship.
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