Christopher Bell will compete in Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series event at Pocono Raceway, despite a substantial crash in the closing stages of the FireKeepers Casino 400 at Michigan International Speedway that left him with a fractured left wrist.
The incident happened immediately following a restart with 50 laps to go, when Chase Elliott, running on the inside of Bell, snapped loose and violently overcorrected his No. 9 NAPA Auto Parts Chevrolet, sending both cars careening towards the SAFER Barrier in Turn 4.
Despite the viciousness of the incident, both Bell and Elliott were able to climb from their race cars without assistance from the AMR Safety Team and were both brought to the infield care center, where they were both checked and released.
The Norman, Oklahoma-native declined the opportunity to speak to the media and was photographed Sunday evening leaving Michigan International Speedway with a cast on his left arm.
In a social media post on Tuesday, Joe Gibbs Racing confirmed Bell’s injuries, saying: “Christopher Bell suffered a fractured left wrist after an accident on Lap 148 of Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Michigan International Speedway. After being evaluated and released from the infield care center, Bell returned home to North Carolina, where X-rays confirmed the fracture. Bell has been cleared and will be behind the wheel of the No. 20 Toyota Camry XSE this weekend at Pocono Raceway.”
The 31-year-old driver took to social media shortly after his team shared the update with the following: “Thank you to everyone who reached out to check on me, I truly feel the love. I’m grateful for my team of doctors, JGR, NASCAR, and all of the previous drivers who have helped pave the way for the safety standards in our sport. See you in Pocono!”
At this time, Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) or Bell haven’t confirmed whether there will be a driver on standby for this weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series event at Pocono Raceway, or for future events.
Now, just how massive was Christopher Bell’s wreck at Michigan?
In an episode of NASCAR’s ‘Hauler Talk’ podcast, Mike Forde said that after conferring with Matt Harper (Managing Director of Safety Systems, NASCAR R&D Center) and Dr. John Patalak (Vice President of Safety Engineering, NASCAR), NASCAR can confirm that Bell’s impact was the hardest in the NextGen era (2022 to present) and the hardest, from a data perspective, that Harper (who has been with NASCAR since 2015) had ever observed.
FOR REFERENCE: In 2023, when Ryan Blaney crashed head-on into the SAFER Barrier at Daytona in August, that incident was measured at 70Gs. His crash at Daytona in the Duels (2024) was 55G. This wreck by Bell was more substantial than both of those.
Forde says that, to measure which wrecks are the hardest, NASCAR primarily uses the Delta V measurement — which is the measure of the amount of speed lost in an impact. (Example: Hitting a wall at 200mph and slowing down to 150mph would have a Delta V of 50).
That information (as far as the Delta V measurement and all the data) is proprietary, in a way, Forde explains, but could be released to the public by Christopher Bell or Joe Gibbs Racing, should they choose to do so.
