When Chase Elliot lost control at Michigan International Speedway and put Christopher Bell into the wall last Sunday, the impact looked bad. Turns out it wasn’t just bad, it was the worst.
NASCAR has confirmed that the “Delta-v” of Bell’s wreck was the hardest ever recorded in the NASCAR Next Gen car and in any car since 2015.
“Delta-v is the measure of speed lost in an incident,” NASCAR Vice President of Racing Communications Mike Forde said on this week’s Hauler Talk podcast.
“So if you’re going 200 mph and then all of a sudden you come to a stop because you hit a wall and scrub off X amount of speed, that difference is what the Delta-v is. I can’t give out the Delta-v number for Bell. That data is proprietary in a way. We share that with the team and the driver, and that’s their data to do with what they want. But we can confirm that it was the largest number we’ve seen in the Next Gen era.”
Bell walked away from the crash, but Joe Gibbs Racing confirmed on late Tuesday that he sustained a fractured wrist. Nevertheless, he plans to race at Pocono this weekend.
“Thank you to each and 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!,” Bell posted on social media.
Bell is among the favorites to win the race, according to Caesar’s Sportsbook odds, sitting third behind his teammate Denny Hamlin and Tyler Reddick. Hamlin is the all-time wins leader at the track with seven while Joe Gibbs Racing has the most team wins at 18. JGR driver Chase Briscoe is the defending winner and fourth ahead of Kyle Larson on the odds list.
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