Christopher Bell, Carson Hocevar move on from Darlington pit snafu

The incident eliminated much of the playoff buffer the JGR 20 entered with

Both Christopher Bell and Carson Hocevar, and their respective crew chiefs, have moved on from the incident on pit road in the Southern 500 that derailed the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 20.

Bell finished 29th, and left Darlington Raceway just 11 points above the playoff elimination cutline due to the damaged sustained in the incident.

Immediately after the race, Bell understood the contact to be the result of Hocevar not catching up to the next car ahead of him and not having anyone to really race off pit road. Bell felt Hocevar should have conceded to the front-runners, while also acknowledging that the drivers are just doing what they are told to do.

Christopher Bell, Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota

Photo by: Jeff Robinson/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

During a press conference on Saturday at World Wide Technology Raceway, Hocevar said his crew chief, Luke Lambert, spoke with JGR 20 crew chief Adam Stevens and got on the same page about the incident.

“Yeah, my crew chief and Adam Stevens talked and they were all good,” Hocevar said. “Obviously, you know heat of the moment, everybody can share their frustration, but they talked and they were all good.

“Drivers, most of the time on pit road, are kind of just blind, per se, right? It’s more on the crew chiefs from that aspect to guide us in and out, so they had that conversation and I think they’re plenty good moving forward.”

Bell said this has never happened to Stevens ever in his time with Bell or Kyle Busch – a testament to his process atop the pit box.

“It’s worked for 12 or however many years he’s been doing this,” Bell said during his scrum on Saturday. “The situation that happened had never happened before where a lead lap car was pitting behind lap down cars, so not caught up to the field, and it bit us.

“He has certainly refined his strategy and protocol coming to pit road and I don’t expect that to happen again.”