“I put myself in a bad spot”: Christopher Bell addresses stage 3 spin at Nashville

Christopher Bell swept the first two stages of the 331-lap event at Nashville Superspeedway on Sunday, but a poor late-race restart became all that eventually stood between his hot streak and a race win. After spinning out on the restart following the caution on lap 219, Bell, who won last week's USA Today 301, exited the track and was forced to resort to the infield care center.

Bell snatched the lead from pole-sitter and teammate Denny Hamlin in just 16 laps. He made a single pit stop with 14 laps to go in Stage 1, jumping back on track en route to his eighth stage win of the season. The #20 driver led another 70 laps straight in Stage 2, acing that as well to become the driver with the most stage wins this year.

Well poised to bag the checkered flag, Bell's crew chief Adam Stevens called him to the pit road following the lap 219 caution. Unfortunately, the restart did not go well as Bell spun out, coming off of turn 1 and ramming into the wall. His day was ruined after that.

Here is a video of the incident from NASCAR on X:

The Oklahoma native spoke about the moment with Frontstretch:

"It sucks. The yellows didn't help there in the third stage flipping the track position, but you have that, you know. Then I got a very bad restart. Once I was buried, I got frustrated and put myself in a bad spot."

A DNF was not something that the 29-year-old was expecting after having led a race-high 132 laps.

"It’s completely different, especially for me, I was out front all day long,” Bell continued. “That was my first time experiencing being back in the pack. I got bottled up there and just lost my cool..."

Christopher Bell currently sits sixth in the NASCAR Cup Series with 576 points to his name. His teammate Denny Hamlin is in P3 and 45 points ahead of him.

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Christopher Bell stays positive despite heartbreaking Nashville outing

Christopher Bell finished 36th in a 38-car field which was indeed disappointing for him. However, he took home 21 points thanks to his back-to-back stage wins. Reflecting on the same, Bell said (via Jayski):

"I mean it’s disappointing, but there’s a lot to be positive about. We won two stages, so we got more playoff points, which is really good. The performance of our team is doing really well, so hopefully we can keep the ball rolling and I think we can win a lot more races."

Christopher Bell entered the race with an ongoing streak of five consecutive top-10 finishes, having come 1st, 4th, 9th, 7th and 1st in his last five finishes. These include the two victories he already has under his belt this year at Charlotte Motor Speedway and New Hampshire Motor Speedway and make him a formidable playoff contender.