NASCAR official sheds light on Bubba Wallace's Richmond penalty

Bubba Wallace had never found much success at Richmond Raceway, but looked poised to deliver a breakthrough performance there on Saturday night.

Wallace led 123 laps on the night and won Stage 2 after finishing second in the opening stage to 23XI Racing teammate Tyler Reddick. 

Everything changed for the Brickyard 400 winner during a green-flag stop with 110 laps to go. As Wallace exited his stall, he lost his left-front tire and pulled into fellow Toyota driver Chase Briscoe's stall to get the tire back on prior to returning to the track.

While the decision to pit in another box forced Wallace to serve a pass-through penalty, NASCAR Cup Series Managing Director Brad Moran said the sanctioning body viewed his actions as the safest move in that scenario.

"The last thing we want is a wheel coming off on the race track. Obviously, the penalties ramp up when you leave pit road and a wheel falls off," Moran said, per NASCAR.com. "But truthfully, really what it is, it's just pitting out of the box is how we look at it. We do not want tires out on the race track, so if it can be avoided, we certainly would like to see that. So, the rule was set that if you happen to lose a tire and you can get it changed in a teammate's box, that's fair game before you leave and you will be penalized for pitting out of the box."

This was the second time this season a driver made the abrupt decision to stop in another driver's box after losing a wheel on pit road. Back in March at Las Vegas, Christopher Bell did the same thing and, ironically enough, also stopped in Briscoe's box to get the wheel secured.

Although Wallace ultimately finished two laps down in 28th, he appeared to have one of the best cars in the field until the pit road mishap derailed his race. He had only led 83 laps combined and recorded one top 10 in his previous 13 starts at Richmond, so the time he spent at the front was a major step in the right direction.

Had the wheel come off on the track, two crew members would have received a two-race suspension, meaning the No. 23 team would not have been at full strength for the playoff opener at Darlington on Aug. 31. Instead, the on-the-spot decision-making kept that from happening on what was shaping up to be a career night at the "Action Track" for Wallace.