Christopher Bell admitted that he “lost (his) cool” before crashing in the final stage of Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Nashville Superspeedway.
Bell was the dominant car in the Ally 400. In addition to sweeping both stages, Bell led a race-high 131 laps before his incident.
But a caution on lap 219 changed his afternoon. Bell came down pit road in second position, having lost the lead to Tyler Reddick after the two battled side-by-side for a handful of laps. When the caution came out, NASCAR deemed Reddick was ahead of Bell.
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On pit road, Bell’s No. 20 team elected for four tires. He came off pit road seventh before Reddick, who also took four tires. The five drivers in front of them, however, had elected for either two tires or fuel only. There were also five drivers who stayed on track.
The turn of events buried Bell in the pack for the restart. He restarted 13th and was running 15th when he lost control in Turn 2, spun, and hit the outside wall with the driver’s side of his Toyota.
“I just put myself in a pretty bad spot going into Turn 1,” said Bell, who finished 36th. “I got bottled up there and just lost my cool to make something happen, and I put myself in a bad spot and spun out.”
The result is the first blemish on the stat sheet for Bell in two months. Not since the race at Dover Motor Speedway (April 28) had he finished outside the top 13. In that time frame, Bell led 462 laps, won two races and seven stages. Bell now leads the series in playoff points and is tied with a series-leading three victories.
“It’s disappointing, but there’s a lot to be positive about,” Bell said of Nashville. “We won two stages, so we got more playoff points, which is really good. And the performance of our team is doing really well, so hopefully, we can keep the ball rolling, and I think we can win a lot more races.”