Joe Gibbs Racing driver Christopher Bell was made available to the media on Saturday prior to the NASCAR Cup Series race from Pocono Raceway.
CHRISTOPHER BELL, No. 20 Rheem Toyota Camry XSE, Joe Gibbs Racing
Do you know how you broke your wrist?
“Yeah, I think I do, so 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, like that on the underside of the wheel and then just the force into the steering wheel, slightly smashed it. So yeah, just that was that.”
Do you have any more concerns for San Diego and Sonoma?
“It’s certainly going to be hard. I’m just going to play it week by week and see how I feel today and practice at Pocono and then after the race. I have done a couple SIM sessions at San Diego. I mean, I feel like I was able to get through an hour or two in the simulator and do okay. So, I’m thankful that it’s another seven days away. I think certainly it’s going to be a week-to-week thing.”
Are you willing to divulge the numbers on the g-force or the Delta-V number is on your impact?
“Honestly, I don’t really know. I’ve been told that it was 63 g’s on impact, so I don’t know what the Delta V is, and honestly, it doesn’t matter to me. It was a big one, but I’m just so, so incredibly fortunate and thankful and blessed that my head was okay. To get out of there with just a fractured wrist is pretty immaculate. I owe all of the credit to NASCAR and my team for building safe cars. I know I said it in my statement earlier, but all of the previous drivers who have paid somewhat of a price to make these cars as safe as they are today, NASCAR from learning from every experience that they’ve had in every moment, every crash; it all paid off, you last Sunday. So, super grateful and I’m looking forward to putting it behind me for sure.”
What are your limitations with your wrist and what is your recovery like?
“From what I’ve been told, it’s pretty much just a normal broken bone. So, under normal circumstances, they would say six weeks. I would expect me to be in a cast for a period of time. I’m really glad that I didn’t have any displaced bones, so I didn’t have to have surgery, which was awesome, but yeah, I’m going to take it week-by-week. Obviously, I’ll be wanting to get out of the cast as quickly as I can. I think my group of doctors are all along the same lines to make sure that I’m healed up as much as possible, but obviously as quick as possible as well. Right now, I’m pretty much driving the car one-handed. I can kind of hold the wheel a little bit. I think enough to shift shifting on the straightaways here at Pocono is I think it’s going to be doable. The road courses, specifically San Diego, like there’s a couple corners that you have to shift in. I think turn one at Sonoma is going to be difficult. I hope for more healing before we get to those tracks for sure.”
What is the medical treatment that you can do today and tomorrow when you are at the track?
“I’m probably not going to disclose that. I think we have a pretty good plan in place. That what I’ll tell you. I will say, I haven’t driven the car yet. I’ve driven a streetcar and I feel fine driving a streetcar, doing normal stuff. So, we’ll learn a lot whenever I get out there here in an hour or so.”
How do you feel like everything in the car performed?
“The car did absolutely perfect, and all of my safety gear did absolutely perfect.
I was really, really grateful, Sunday whenever I hit the wall that all of that R and D, all of that effort had gone into making sure that I had the perfect containment system and it worked. Everything worked perfectly.”
What was the interaction with Chase Elliott right after, and can you talk about how many people have reached out?
“It’s been it’s been incredible, the amount of people that have reached out to me. This past week, my phone has literally been on fire and it’s been eye-opening how much love I have received from everybody, all of my competitors throughout the NASCAR garage, all of my peers and coworkers throughout the NASCAR garage, friends and family members, even drivers and competitors that I raced against on the dirt side that have reached out to me. So, it has been surreal to see that. Then, I can’t speak highly enough of Chase (Elliott) as well. The moment that he saw me out of the car, he was visibly shaken up and concerned about me. I appreciate so much his, demeanor and his thoughts of me and he’s reached out several times throughout the week to make sure I’m okay. Obviously, I asked him if he was okay too. He had a big hit as well, but just thankful for all of the love from everybody. Everyone in the community, everyone outside of the community, my phone has been the busiest this week, it’s been in my entire life.”
Do you plan to race all 400 miles? Do you have a reserve driver?
“The plan is absolutely for me to compete all or completes all 400 miles, but we do have a backup plan in place for tomorrow if I am not able to do it. Brandon Jones, he came and set through all of our SIM sessions this week to make sure that he was up to speed. He did a great job driving the simulator as well. I think that it’s either going to be like I’m going to commit to the race and I’m going to do it, or I’m going be out and just start and ride around until the first yellow. But, as of right now, I’m full commit planning on running 400 miles.”
What do you remember about the wreck? What was the impact like? What were your thoughts immediately after?
“I mean, I remember everything. I remember going into turn 3 side-by-side. I saw Chase (Elliott) wiggle then I thought that I was going to go around the outside of them, and then at the last moment I saw his car come right, and then, if I remember right, it kind of like picked my nose up, and shot me right. So, I remember staring at that Michigan USA sign too, saw the whole thing coming. Once I hit the wall, my earpiece popped out, so I scared the crap out of my wife (Morgan) and probably everyone else listening because I didn’t respond to Tab (Boyd, spotter) whenever he was checking on me, but my ear deal popped out, so I didn’t have any communication, and then I saw the car was on fire. I was trying to get out as quick as I could. I knew my wrist was broke right away, because I couldn’t disconnect my shirt. I reached down, tried to disconnect my shirt, and I couldn’t squeeze the button, so I had to use my right hand to do that. Then, my foot hurt really, really bad too. We got x-rays on my foot. It just ended up being bruised. So, yeah, between beside my foot and my wrist, I was good to go. I knew right away, or I thought I knew right away, that my head was okay because I didn’t have any sort of headache, didn’t black out. I remembered everything. Obviously in the infield care center, they did tests on me. So just super, super blessed that I didn’t hit my noggin and yeah, glad I can continue on.”
Did you feel like that was just a racing incident at Michigan?
“Yeah, I mean, I just thought it was racing. I don’t even know that I would call it hard racing. It was just a racing accident. He got loose. We were side-by-side through the corner, but these cars don’t really tend to lose a lot of side force whenever you’re side by side compared to the other cars. I didn’t think he did anything egregious. I didn’t think I did anything egregious. It was just a racing accident.”
Has your cast been modified to help you in the car? Has the steering wheel been modified at all?
“The OrthoCarolina team did a really good job of making sure that the cast is as molded to a steering wheel as I could get it. So, I can grip the wheel as well as or as good as I can, and then Max Papis. He did a great job of helping me out with a steering wheel to accommodate me, the best that I can. We took a lot of material off of the left side of the wheel just to make it skinnier, because I have so much material in my palm to help my hand get around the steering wheel. I feel like we’re as ready as we can get and see what happens.”
How different is your steering wheel than normal?
“It’s not much different. Everything’s the exact same, except for the left side, the left side just has some material taken away and it’s a smaller diameter than my right side, just because I have material taking up space in my palm. I’m going have to acclimate to driving primarily right-handed. I think I primarily drove left-handed under normal circumstances, so it’s going take a little bit of acclimation for sure.”
When did it hit that you were in pain?
“Yeah, it was it was pretty instantaneous. As soon as I stopped and reached down to undo my shirt and unhook my shirt, I couldn’t hit the button. I had instant pain. I didn’t have pain before I went to hit the button, and then whenever I went to hit the button, I’m like, oh man, something’s wrong. Then I got out of the car and I was like looking at it. I’m like, well, it still looks okay. So, I guess it’s okay, but then I couldn’t get my chin strap undone. So I’m like, okay, something’s wrong. I knew I knew right away that it was broken, and then once I think I took some Advil or ibuprofen there in the infield care center and they put me in a splint, and then from that point on, the pain has been not much at all if I, if I’m not moving it, but certainly whenever I move it, I get some pain.”
Did you ever consider not racing this week?
“Honestly, I didn’t even consider the points, but Sunday, whenever I got to the airplane, 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, 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. Really, there was no thoughts of me missing a race since my head was fine. The important stuff is fine. Honestly, if we weren’t shifting, Pocono would be a really good track to have this issue with, but the shifting makes it a little bit more difficult. Next week’s going to be interesting, Bob (Pockrass). Next week’s going to be interesting.”
Beyond the steering wheel is there any other modifications?
“So just everything that I would do left-handed, like my drink bottle, my radios, my helmet blower, all of that stuff just got moved to the right side of the car. So, I can use my right hand with it. So, yeah, I think that that’s it.”
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