Inside The Garage: The Aftermath Of Christopher Bell’s Huge Michigan Crash

Here’s what’s happening this week Inside The Garage: Pocono Raceway (Long Pond, Pa.) — Drivers seemed thankful that all Christopher Bell suffered in a violent crash June 7 at Michigan International Speedway was a fractured left wrist. Most thankful was Bell himself. “To get out of there with just a fractured wrist is pretty immaculate,” Bell said in a news conference Saturday at Pocono Raceway. When drivers saw Bell hit the wall after Chase Elliott drifted into him at high speed, they knew they had seen a hard hit. NASCAR says the change-in-velocity (delta-V) was the highest since 2015. Bell said it was 62Gs, not as much as Ryan Blaney’s 70G hit at Daytona but more than most others in recent years. NASCAR will continue to look at photos of the car and the data from the accident. Bell does not wear a mouthguard that records data in accidents as some drivers do voluntarily. NASCAR has a high-speed camera that starts recording at the beginning of accidents as well as an incident data recorder. Bell never had time to take his hand off the wheel. “I was still hands on the wheel. Hands turned left and then my left hand, which was on the bottom, my wrist was bent over [palm up] on the underside of the wheel and then just the force into the steering wheel slightly smashed it,” Bell said of the accident. Bell was able to race at Pocono this past weekend and is hopeful he can handle the upcoming road courses at Naval Base Coronado and Sonoma. As far as any follow-ups to the accident on NASCAR’s side, NASCAR conducts meetings every couple of months with the drivers and will likely summarize anything they find as a result of the accident that they think could be useful to other drivers. Chase Briscoe, a teammate of Bell’s at Joe Gibbs Racing, said he will examine how Bell has the seat safety equipment installed and how much foam he uses on his headrests because for Bell not to have a concussion amazed him. “I’m just trying to see if maybe I need to do something different in my stuff,” Briscoe said in his Pocono pre-race news conference. “Because I feel like to be able to get out of that impact, especially like from a head standpoint, to not have a concussion, he’s got something right with his helmet or head rest or whatever. Elliott has continued to talk to Bell about the accident and said that he would look at the things that he can do with his interior safety equipment. “The way the cars are built and all that is pretty far beyond me,” Elliott told me and other reporters Saturday at Pocono. “So I think at this point it’s just more focusing on the things that are in our control to try and help from a driver’s perspective and hopefully, the rest of it will improve as time goes as well. “In the short term, just [do] things that we have easier access to adjust and improve upon.” Brad Keselowski also said he doesn’t believe they will significantly change the car, so he doesn’t want to know too much about the car and the accident. He said the move to a rack-and-pinion steering will generate more hand and wrist injuries. “The old car … actually served the sport very well because you could have a lot of wheel-to-wheel contact and the steering system would absorb it without transferring it through to your arms and hands at the level that it does today with the rack-and-pinion,” Keselowski told me and other reporters. “Most vehicles today use rack-and-pinion steering. It’s a more efficient way of steering cars — less parts, less energy. But it is more apt to transfer energy through your arms, hands, wrists, fingers, et cetera.” William Byron felt the accident was a product of the racing in the Next Gen car. “You wouldn’t see that kind of a crash, as violent as that was, with the Gen 6 car,” Byron said about the previous iteration of NASCAR’s Cup car in a news conference. “You’re seeing that crash because of the nature of the tire, the aero and everything with these cars. “It was a violent impact. Fortunately, the car is capable of taking that and Christopher was able to get out, so that’s a good thing. But that impact to me is way, way larger than what we would have had in the past with a bigger sidewall and a different tire.” Bell said he didn’t consider not racing Pocono, and it wasn’t because he had to race to get points in the current format. “I didn’t really have any thought of not racing because I’m like, ‘As long as I can hold the steering wheel, I’ll be fine,’” Bell said. “And then throughout my simulator sessions, obviously that was a test of like, ‘How am I going to do driving the car?’ “I did fine in the simulator. There [were] no thoughts of me missing a race since my head was fine. The important stuff is fine.” Berry Out At Wood Brothers Josh Berry found out last week he would not return to Wood Brothers Racing in 2027. He won a race last year at Las Vegas to make the playoffs and finish 16th in the standings. He is sits 30th in the current Cup standings. [NASCAR SILLY SEASON: Tracking Driver Movement] “I still feel like I’m the same guy that won Las Vegas,” Berry said on a video teleconference Wednesday with reporters. “I’m still the same guy that nearly won at New Hampshire in the playoffs. It’s been a tough year, but we’ll work through it and try to find out what’s out there. “The sun came up today regardless of how bad it might have felt yesterday [when I found out]. It might have felt like it might not, but the sun came up this morning and it’s a new day. You land on your feet and go to work and that’s all you can do.” RIP Dennis Reinbold Dreyer & Reinbold co-owner Dennis Reinbold died Saturday at age 65. His family has fielded cars in INDYCAR for more than two decades. Most recently, the team had two cars in the Indianapolis 500 for Jack Harvey and Conor Daly. “Dennis was a proud son of Indianapolis,” the team said in a social media post. “He built a successful family of automobile dealerships across the state, and he loved the community of Indianapolis that gave him so much in return. “That same devotion fueled his passion for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway — its history and the relentless pursuit of an Indy 500 win drove him every day.” In The News — NASCAR’s 32-driver in-season tournament bracket is set … but it won’t begin for another couple of weeks at Sonoma. The race-within-the-race head-to-head matchups will begin at Sonoma Raceway so that this weekend’s race at Naval Base Coronado, a new event, doesn’t impact the brackets. — The San Diego truck race will have several former series regulars and veteran drivers in the event, including Trackhouse owner Justin Marks in a truck for Spire Motorsports. Brendan Gaughan will drive a truck for McAnally-Hilgemann Racing. Jimmie Johnson (Tricon) and Jamie McMuarry (Kaulig) are in the race as well. — Salvador de Alba will have a six-spot grid penalty for the first Indy NXT race at Road America this weekend for avoidable contact with Jordan Missig on Lap 61 of the race at WWTR Gateway (de Alba’s day ended with the contact). Gaining Ground Legacy Motor Club put two cars in the top 10 at Pocono, with John Hunter Nemechek fourth and Erik Jones sixth. Nemechek led 42 laps and Jones moved up to 15th in the standings, now above the Chase cutoff. “Today was probably one of the best days I’ve had in the Cup Series as a driver,” Nemechek told me and other reporters after the race. “We need to build that confidence, we need to build the momentum and the potential we have in our race cars.” Chase Clincher In the O’Reilly Series, Justin Allgaier has clinched a spot in the postseason Chase with seven races left in the regular season. Social Spotlight They Said It “I’m just at this point in my career trying to stack as many wins as possible. Points? Whatever. Wherever we finish in the championship? Whatever. To me, it’s wins, wins, wins.” — Denny Hamlin following his victory at Pocono, his third straight Cup win. In Inside The Garage, Bob Pockrass takes us behind the scenes of the motorsports world the way only he can.