RICHMOND, Va. — When Christopher Bell got the call that his crew chief, Adam Stevens, would be away from the track for a little more than NASCAR’s two-week break for the Olympics, his reaction was marked by surprise. Taking in the news that Stevens had injured both knees in a diving board accident while on family vacation, Bell also took a pause.
“I mean, I guess he said that he was jumping, and it just literally snapped both of his knees. So that’s insane,” Bell said Saturday at Richmond Raceway, site of Sunday’s Cook Out 400 (6 p.m. ET, USA, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App). “I’d never heard of that, but then come to find out, my car chief Chris Sherwood — actually my crew chief now — his wife said that she’s seen that before, but it makes me terrified of jumping off a diving board, that’s for sure.”
There may be no twists and flips on the 10-meter platform for Bell, but he’ll take a leap into Sunday’s 400-lapper without Stevens — his crew chief since 2021 — atop the pit box for the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 20 Toyota team. Replacing him in the interim will be Sherwood, who is a familiar face for Bell and who subbed for Stevens during a Cup Series weekend in 2021 at Watkins Glen International.
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There’s a confidence level there with Sherwood, Bell said, that dates back to before his arrival on JGR’s Cup Series roster. There’s also the knowledge that Stevens will have a guiding role from back at the team headquarters.
“Honestly, there’s not a better guy out there for the job than Sherwood, just because I’m very comfortable around him,” said Bell, who starts fifth Sunday. “He was my mechanic on my Xfinity cars at JGR back in 2018, 2019, so we have a long history. And Adam is still, he’s going to be basically doing his job. The communication will be through Sherwood because Adam can’t be here. But yeah, I feel confident that we’ll be just fine.”
Some of that optimism stems from his penchant for racing on Richmond’s 0.75-mile layout. He’s a three-time winner in just five Xfinity Series races here, and though he’s yet to break through at Richmond in the Cup Series, his average finish is an admirable 7.5 in eight starts.
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Tempering those positives is the strategy-sensitive nature of Richmond, where a new wrinkle debuts this weekend with the introduction of tire choices for the first time in a points-paying Cup Series event. “You’ve got to bring that one up, too, don’t you?” Bell laughed when reminded of the extra strategy layer. Still, he’s hopeful that a solid day — from a results standpoint and in the team’s communication — is achievable.
“This is definitely one that we have circled to be a track where we run well, hopefully score a lot of points at,” Bell says. “The thing that’s very interesting about Richmond is that it is a place that’s filled with late pit-strategy calls, right? And with Adam not being on the pit box, if there’s any sort of delay from the information he’s getting in Huntersville, North Carolina, to what we’re actually doing here in Richmond, they could be a little tricky because this place, the name of the game is executing your pit strategy, whether you’re short-pitting or long-pitting, and there’s a lot of last-minute decisions that have to be made here at Richmond.
“I think every week that we miss with Adam, it should get easier and easier as we get into a routine, but I don’t know. I mean, I feel confident that we’re going to be strong, and hopefully, we don’t miss a beat.”
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