Chase Briscoe reacts to Christopher Bell using his pit stall at Las Vegas, heard ‘screaming’ on radio

There’s a lot going on in any given NASCAR race, but you don’t often see what occurred courtesy of Christopher Bell on Sunday at Las Vegas. In fact, for a minute, it gave Chase Briscoe quite a scare.

Briscoe was minding his own business on the track when suddenly his radio chatter exploded. Violently, at that.

“Yeah I didn’t see it, what happened,” Briscoe explained, via Kelly Crandall. “But yeah I was just rolling in the middle of turn 1 and turn 2, and (crew chief) James (Small) came on the radio and was screaming about the left front tire. (I’m wondering) what is going on?”

Briscoe, of course, wasn’t the target of the sudden communications. That was Christopher Bell, who had suddenly pulled into Briscoe’s pit box in a double-pit maneuver.

He had a loose wheel and had caught it in time before he headed back out to the track. So he made a quick veer into a Joe Gibbs Racing teammate’s pit stall.

“But yeah, I quickly learned,” Briscoe explained. “I looked up on the big screen and I could see that the 20 was in our box or whatever, and I came over the radio as soon as it happened, like, ‘Why are you screaming? What’s wrong with the left front?’ They explained to me that the 20 had a loose wheel.”

The maneuver by Christopher Bell was mostly lauded by other drivers as being a witty play. He was still penalized for it, of course, but he avoided a two-lap hold — and more importantly pit crew suspensions — by avoiding a scenario where he lost a tire on the track.

That’s a worthwhile gambit, it seems. Briscoe was impressed with Christopher Bell’s quick thinking, especially after losing a tire himself.

“Super heads up. Smart by the 20,” he said. “You know, obviously I wish we could have done that with our tire. But yeah it was crazy. I didn’t even know you could do that, truthfully.”