“I don’t have any clue what the rule is” - Christopher Bell’s crew chief slams NASCAR for their ‘blown up’ DVP

Christopher Bell's crew chief Adam Stevens has claimed not to know the NASCAR Damaged Vehicle Policy (DVP) rule amid the Talladega shakeup. He said the rule was changed during the YellaWood 500 but was not communicated with the teams.

DVP stops damaged vehicles (potentially after a crash) from re-entering the pits or the race if they do not meet the minimum speed on the track. Also, the teams are given limited time to fix their cars.

However, the authorities seemingly bent the rule at Talladega on Sunday (October 6) after a 'big one' in the final stages of the race took out 28 NextGen cars. This triggered the red flag. As the race was stopped, NASCAR towed the damaged vehicles back to the pits, and teams were allowed to work on them.

This change in the rule did not go well with many teams. Christopher Bell's crew chief Adam Stevens claimed that the rule used to be different.

"I don't have any clue what the rule is going forward," he told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. "That was all blown up this weekend. I could tell you what the rule has been. The rule has been if you're involved in an incident and you can't drive it back, you were out of the race. I was a victim of that a dozen times in my career. You know, recent years that that has been the rule. We saw it with the 12 at Watkins Glen. We saw it with 4 at Kansas."

Christopher Bell further claimed that the teams were not notified or communicated in any way about the change in the rule.

"And I mean, every week you could probably pick a car that's been a victim of that. And then this weekend that wasn't the case. There was nothing communicated, to me, to my team or anybody in the walls of Joe Gibbs racing that that was going to change. So that doesn't seem, I don't know, something doesn't seem right. It doesn't sit right with me that that just changed on the fly and wasn't communicated to the teams," he added.

Christopher Bell managed to avoid the major crash and finished the race in sixth place. He currently sits in second position in the playoffs standings with +57 points.

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Christopher Bell feels "lucky" to have escaped the crash at Talladega

Serving a penalty at the start, the #20 of Joe Gibbs Racing fell behind the grid. However, he managed to finish the first stage in fifth place. The second stage did not bring him a good enough result as he fell out of the drafting pack.

The third stage, he claimed was "lucky" for him as he escaped the crash. As the front of the pack came together in the 28-car wreck, Christopher Bell was still running P19. This gave him the chance to drive through the major wreck without contacting any other car.

Reviewing his race, he told journalist Matt Weaver (via X):

"I feel like I did my part. There's a lot that goes into these races that are outside of the drivers hands. Stage 1, we started at the back, had to pass through and pretty much all the strategy was out of the window with the yellow flag coming. We were able to make our way to the front score some points, that was really good."

"Stage 2 I lost the draft and that was really bad, had some ups and downs. Stage 3, just got lucky and [was] fortunate to miss the wreck and that's what it's all about," he added.