Kyle Busch Motorsports driver Christopher Bell was made available to the media at Atlanta Motor Speedway:
CHRISTOPHER BELL, No. 4 JBL Toyota Tundra, Kyle Busch Motorsports
Are you prepared for this weekend?
“Fortunately, the Kyle Busch Motorsports camp was able to come over here and test a couple weeks ago, so the weather was pretty similar and hopefully we were able to learn something to carry on into today.”
Did your open wheel wrecks prepare you for the flipping in the truck?
“Your right, I have flipped a couple of times in my open wheel days, but the biggest thing about the stock car is it might not hurt as bad because you’ve got more material around you, but the g-forces were way more just because I think the biggest thing was you’re sitting to the left compared an open wheel car you’re in the center of the car, so everything is flipping around you where in the stock car you’re off to the side of the truck. So whenever you start barrel rolling, it’s trying to throw you out of the car.”
Did you have time to think while you were flipping?
“Basically I was just trying to wonder when this thing was going to stop and whenever you start flipping, it just feels like it goes on forever. I was in the tuck position just gripping the wheel as tight as I could just hoping it would stop and whenever it would stop then no one would hit me and I’d be on all fours. Luckily, my spotter he called over to me that everyone’s gone by, nobody’s hit you and, yeah, just waiting for it to stop.”
What was your first thought when the wreck stopped?
“When I stopped, you’ve got a lot of adrenaline and so I felt really good. As soon as I got done crashing, I was on the radio, man, like, ‘I’m fine. Let me out of this thing,’ and attempted to get the window net down, but it was stuck, but then after a couple minutes of fumbling with it, I was able to get it down and hopped out, but walking to the ambulance I was pretty dizzy and then by the time I got there I was really dizzy. As far as the injuries, no injuries at all except bruising. I mean, my face was a little bruised afterwards, but other than that I was fine – a couple of days later, I was fine. Woke up the next morning and felt 100 percent until I started – until I got out of bed – and then once I got out of bed I realized I couldn’t move quite as fast, but after a couple days that was all gone and I’m good to go.”
How quickly will you put this behind you?
“I guess that’s one thing different than the open wheel stuff. With the open wheel program, you run 100 races a year, so it’s – you flip on Saturday, you’re back racing Sunday. Luckily, we didn’t have a huge break where you have to sit there and ponder it, so I’m looking forward to today and tomorrow to get Daytona back behind us and where we can start – hopefully start fresh with a good run here this weekend.”
Did they take you to the hospital because you were dizzy?
“I’m just really thankful that everyone before me that have taken hard crashes and NASCAR has done all their research about it and they just wanted to take me in for precautionary reasons and, yeah, that’s probably why they took me back there. I was a little bit nauseas, but not bad and went there, did concussion tests, but thankfully I never really took a super hard hit and I didn’t have a concussion.”
What was your reaction to the replay of your wreck?
“Probably, I flipped – after watching the replay – well, my biggest thing was I just wanted to see how it all started just because in the truck you really don’t realize how you get moved around and how it starts, but then after that the flip actually I was just really thankful it never hit hard on the cage or on the nose. It was all kind of just barrel rolls and so just really grateful that it never hit that super hard hit.”
Was it spectacular to see?
“Yeah, definitely looking back at it. I watched (Kyle) Larson’s crash and I grew up racing with Larson, so he’s my buddy. Then watching Austin Dillon at Daytona last year, you think that it will never happen to me, that will never happen to me and then next thing you know it is happening to you, so watching it was definitely an eye opener because even after I went through the crash, it still didn’t really sink in, but then whenever I got to watch myself flipping, it’s like, ‘Wow, that did happen to me.’ It puts everything in perspective for sure.”
What will you do to stay busy between now and Martinsville?
“As of right now, I’ve got one open wheel race scheduled and that’s in two weeks. Then from there going to go do some late model racing, so living my dream and get to race as much as I can and thankful for the opportunities I’ve got and just going to keep racing.”
What’s your relationship with JBL like?
“It’s a sponsorship that’s really worked out good just because I’m young, I like music – I mean, everybody likes music – so I’m able to – I enjoy their product and I use their product on a daily basis, so it’s cool to be able to have someone that you can relate to and someone that you actually enjoy their product.”
How did your face get bruised in the accident?
“My face was pretty bruised and I think – basically just my forehead and down a little bit to my eyes, but I think that’s just from – I don’t know if it was because my helmet. That was my first race on my helmet, so it was really tight and a couple of times I’ve crashed open wheel cars and just because the helmet is so tight on my head I’ll get a little bit of bruising, but I couldn’t tell you if it’s from the helmet being tight or just the series of barrel rolls.”
