Ross Chastain's gamble to secure a spot in last year's Championship 4 in Phoenix was one of the greatest moves of the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series. And it will likely never be seen again.
Chastain's upshift into the wall on Turns 3 and 4 of the final lap at Martinsville not only gave him the fastest lap ever at Martinsville Speedway, but also vaulted him from 10th place to a fifth-place finish: good enough to advance to the Championship 4 the following week. He finished just ahead of Denny Hamlin in the race and in the playoff points standings.
The maneuver, which gained notoriety not only for its novelty but also because of the stage Chastain used it on, was hailed as the "Hail Melon" — a portmanteau of football's "Hail Mary" and watermelon, of which Chastain is an eighth-generation farmer.
Chastain said after the race he and other racers routinely tried the move in NASCAR video games while growing up. With nothing to lose, he figured he'd try it in real life — with spectacular success:
ABSOLUTELY WILD!
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) October 30, 2022
BELL WINS! CHASTAIN WITH AN INCREDIBLE MOVE! #NASCARPlayoffs pic.twitter.com/aFW9YP6PUZ
MORE: Inside Ross Chastain's Martinsville 'video game move'
Naturally, NASCAR made the move illegal before the start of the 2023 Cup Series, folding the move into an already-existing rule that will prohibit its use in the future. With that, The Sporting News looks at why NASCAR banned Chastain's infamous Hail Melon move:
Why did NASCAR ban Ross Chastain's wall ride move?
NASCAR, citing safety concerns, officially ruled on Jan. 31 that Chastain's wall ride maneuver would be banned from the 2023 Cup Series on. The move did not necessitate the need for an additional rule, however. NASCAR officials simply folded it into the already-existing rule, 10.5.2.6.A.
Per the NASCAR rulebook:
“Safety is a top priority for NASCAR and NEM (NASCAR Event Management). Therefore, any violations deemed to compromise the safety of an Event or otherwise pose a dangerous risk to the safety of Competitors, Officials, spectators, or others are treated with the highest degree of seriousness. Safety violations will be handled on a case-by-case basis.”
NASCAR's official statement said any vehicle that attempts Chastain's wall ride will be issued a time penalty. Said Elton Sawyer, NASCAR’s senior vice president of competition:
“Basically, if there’s an act that we feel that compromises the safety of our competitors, officials, spectators, we’re going to take that seriously. And we will penalize for that act going forward. Basically, what it would be is a lap or time penalty at the end of the race, so that move at Martinsville would be a penalty.”
MORE: NASCAR drivers react to Ross Chastain's move on team comms: 'The f— was the 1 doing?'
Why didn't NASCAR ban wall ride move sooner?
When NASCAR updated driving teams on the rule change — via Motorsport.com — Sawyer also touched on why NASCAR didn't implement it in the final race of the 2022 Cup Series in Phoenix. Essentially, officials wanted to evaluate the rulebook over the offseason while finishing the season with consistent enforcement of the existing rules.
"This is not a new rule," Sawyer said in the update. "The safety language has existed in the rule book, and following Martinsville, we evaluated it, and chose to officiate consistently for the final race of 2022.
"Since the end of the season, we have worked with the drivers and teams to discuss the best way to officiate/interpret the rule for 2023, and we believe this is the right interpretation for the safety of our competitors moving forward."
Joey Logano had perhaps the best explanation for why NASCAR hadn't already banned the wall ride maneuver before Chastain used it at Martinsville:
“Something we all thought about at one point — at least I thought about it a lot but never really had the need to do it," Logano said in the aftermath of the race, before adding: "It was awesome, it was cool. It happened for the first time."
Essentially, NASCAR hadn't banned the move because officials never thought drivers would actually use it. That thinking changed after Chastain's "Hail Melon" earned him a berth in the Championship 4. That said, neither he nor his contemporaries appear upset at the move's prohibition, as even the driver of the No. 1 Chevy said he didn't intend to use the maneuver ever again.
“Why it worked? I don’t know, but I have no ideas or plans to ever do that again because it was not pleasant,” he said on Championship 4 media day.
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Other drivers who acknowledged the novelty and thrill of the move also said after the Martinsville race that NASCAR needed to ban it.
Said Logano: “As spectacular as it was, as much as it worked, the problem is now the box is open, right? … That’s not good.
"There’s no rule against it. There needs to be a rule against this one because I don’t know if you want the whole field riding the wall coming to the checkered flag.”
Ryan Blaney also offered a glimpse into the future if NASCAR didn't make a change: “I guess we’ll all start doing it now coming down to the end of the race.”
With NASCAR's intervention, that will no longer be the case. With that, Chastain's "Hail Melon" will be remembered as a one-of-a-kind move in the history of the NASCAR Cup Series.
