LOUDON, N.H. – Honest mistakes, everyone makes them. Christopher Bell experienced that on Friday afternoon at New Hampshire Motor Speedway when he had a slip of the tongue while answering a question on leadership within Joe Gibbs Racing.
“Every time we go into our Monday meetings, it could be whoever has a good race that week,” Bell said. “Plenty of times it has been Ty [Gibbs], plenty of times it has been Martin [Truex Jr.] or me or Denny [Hamlin.] I don’t think there really is a leadership role in that aspect, and whenever Chase [Briscoe] comes into the car…. whenever some…whenever… whenever we have a new driver into the 19 car.”
Bell accidentally spilled the beans on Briscoe joining Joe Gibbs Racing for the 2025 season, taking over the No. 19 Toyota. The move had been thrown around in recent weeks, but nothing was confirmed.
Almost immediately, Bell sent Briscoe a text to inform him of his slip up.
“It was funny. Christopher texted me and he said, ‘I messed up so bad,'” Briscoe said on Saturday at New Hampshire. “I was like, ‘What happened, what do you mean?’ He goes, ‘Go look at Twitter.'”
The problem with checking Twitter was Briscoe was at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway Flat Track to compete in a sprint car race. He had no signal in the woodland New England region.
“I couldn’t receive any texts, so I couldn’t get anything to load,” Briscoe added. “And literally the last text I got was Christopher saying, ‘I messed up, go look at Twitter.’ I got to the race track and I had no signal, so I didn’t know what had happened for probably three or four hours while I was over there. A couple of people had signal and told me what had happened. I didn’t even get to see the video until I got back at 12:30 or 1:00 in the morning.
“I didn’t know what to expect, but it was funny and weird knowing something was out there but had no way to see what it was or what happened. People were coming up to me at the track and I had no idea what they were talking about at first. It was definitely an odd night.”
Other drivers chimed in with Bell’s slip up. Kyle Larson jokingly congratulated his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Chase Elliott on his move to JGR.
“I was really proud of it,” Larson said of his tweet. “I was typing it so fast and couldn’t wait to get it out there. I texted Bell and Briscoe before I even sent that tweet that I was [expletive] dying laughing because it was hilarious. That is the greatest way to announce somebody coming to a team.”
Man totally blind sided by this news! Wishing @chaseelliott the best on his new adventure at @JoeGibbsRacing. Have enjoyed you as a teammate! 😂 Good Luck #d19 https://t.co/MLNUG7Qyim
— Kyle Larson (@KyleLarsonRacin) June 21, 2024
Briscoe had fun with the slip up as well, as he and Bell have known each other since they were hot shoes working their way up the racing ranks. They even lived together for a period of time but grew distant as they competed for different organizations and separate organizations.
“I feel like Christopher has always believed in me and we’ve never really been in the same opportunities at the same time, so it will be fun,” Briscoe stated. “It will be nice to get to work with Christopher a lot.”
While Briscoe’s future is becoming clearer, he reiterated that nothing is official until it’s official. He’s still amidst a points battle, hoping to propel the No. 14 Stewart-Haas racing team into the postseason. Wit three finishes of 25th or worse in the last month, he’s dropped to 19th on the playoff grid, 44 points below the elimination line, currently held by Bubba Wallace.
With the announcement last month of SHR shutting down, 2024 has been a learning year for Briscoe. He’s had to go old school and represent himself while trying to find a new home for 2025.
“It’s just a weird year: on the track, off the track,” Briscoe added. “There is a lot of stuff going on in my life from the twins coming. There has been a lot of change after this year, and it’s been an odd year. I think one that I look back on and appreciate and I feel like I’ve learned a lot this year on how to handle stuff on and off the race track. Even going through this whole process and doing it all on my own kind of feels like when I first moved down to Charlotte and trying to grind and find something. It’s been fun to go back to that.”
With qualifying getting canceled due to inclement weather, Briscoe will start 23rd in Sunday’s USA Today 301 at New Hampshire.