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Bubba Wallace’s Spotter Laments Delay in William Byron Verdict As He Denies NASCAR Involvement in Hendrick Motorsports-Led Overturn

Published 10/11/2022, 9:15 AM EDT

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This year’s NASCAR Cup Series championships have been tumultuous up to this point. Following William Byron’s penalty being overturned chaos ensued across the playoff grid. Later on, Bubba Wallace’s spotter and podcaster, Freddie Kraft expressed what bothered him regarding Bryon’s appeal decision.

Kraft said, “So one thing I’ll say about this that I’ve seen people go crazy over was, NASCAR has nothing to do with the appeals panel. I promise you NASCAR wanted to give William Byron a 25-point penalty and the appeals panel which is not NASCAR, random…”

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Griffin added, “Committee…” Kraft then continued, “So yeah listen, it is what it is, and they got it overturned. You could tell it must have been a wording issue because the day after they overturned this penalty NASCAR changed the rulebook, to include different wording when you spin somebody or whatever. However, that was worded, but they changed the wording because it’s gonna cover this now I guess.”

He continued, “But listen it is what it is and the thing that really bothers me is, this should have happened, the Byron appeal should have happened before Talladega. Because people raced differently at Talladega based on William Byron’s point standing. And if your thinking now, you’re coming out of Talladega, he’s whatever 11-12 points behind and now he jumps you and is 14-points ahead of you.

“You call your race a lot different not knowing where William Byron’s point stature is, so if you’re gonna do this, you have to have the hearings the week of the penalty. Like you can’t put it off the week in the playoffs.”

William Byron’s overturned appeal led to Kyle Larson being knocked out of the playoffs

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The defending champion had smooth sailing up until the race at Charlotte Roval. However, following the race, he was inadvertently knocked out of the playoff contention, as the field continued on to the round of 8.

USA Today via Reuters

Hendrick Motorsports’ decision to appeal Byron’s points penalty happened to have backfired right on them as Larson was soon seen to be out of the playoff contention altogether.

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Moreover, during the race, Larson had also hit the wall which caused damages to his vehicle further sealing his fate.

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Written by:

Srijan Mandal

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Srijan Mandal is a NASCAR author at EssentiallySports. He is currently pursuing his Master’s in Journalism and has been writing for his own blog as well, covering NASCAR, F1, F2, W Series, MotoGP, DTM, IndyCar, WRC, and WEC. Following motorsports for more than a decade, he has become a devout supporter of McLaren Racing, Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Bubba Wallace, Sir Lewis Hamilton, and Ayrton Senna.
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Edited by:

Nizamul Haque Bhuyan