During a news conference Friday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Bell – who drives the No. 20 Toyota at Joe Gibbs Racing – was asked about how a potential leadership vacuum at the organization would be filled next season after Martin Truex Jr. retires at the end of 2024.
Bell described the input by himself, teammates, Denny Hamlin and Ty Gibbs and then went on to say, “And whenever Chase comes into the car …” Bell then immediately broke into a smile and turned to his public relations representative and then laughed.
“Whenever there’s someone … I don’t even know what to say,” he continued.
News that Chase Briscoe, currently driving the No. 14 Ford at Stewart-Haas Racing, was a likely replacement for Truex had already filtered out last weekend at Iowa Speedway and Bell’s slip just added to the speculation.
Even Cup driver Kyle Larson jokingly played along, posting a message on his X (formerly Twitter) feed insinuating the ‘Chase’ Bell was referring to could be his Hendrick teammate, Chase Elliott.
While all that was going on, however, Briscoe was completely unaware.
No cell service
Briscoe was at the small dirt track near NHMS, running in a sprint car race with little to no cell phone service.
“I had no signal last night and I was running the Sprint car,” Briscoe explained. “So, Christopher texted me, ‘Hey, I messed up’ and I said, ‘What do you mean? He said, ‘Check Twitter.
“Then, I got to this track, and I had no signal for like six hours, so I couldn’t get anything to load, no text messages. Couldn’t send, couldn’t call anybody like, it was terrible.
“So, I had no idea what had happened and what was even going on.”
Asked what he did once he got full signal and saw all the talk Bell’s slip-up had produced, Briscoe said, “My first thought was, ‘Man, I need to call Rick Hendrick about that ride that opened up
“I thought what Larson said was pretty, pretty good. I don’t know. I laughed about it.”
On the serious side, Briscoe said moving to a new organization will present new challenges, but he also finds the end of SHR disappointing.
“Wherever I go it is going to be just different, you know, learning a new group of guys and how they do things and respond, but it is really bittersweet,” he said. “I can’t express enough how tight knit the No. 14 group is.
“I mean, we were at the shop Tuesday and just talking about how it’s going to be so weird for all this us not to work together. This group will never work as a whole.
“It’s kind of sad knowing that just how good we feel like we all are as a group. It’s hard to find.”