Christopher Bell sustained the hardest crash impact of the Next Gen era when his No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota pounded the Turn 4 wall on Sunday at Michigan International Speedway.
On the latest episode of the “Hauler Talk” podcast, Mike Forde, NASCAR vice president of racing communications, confirmed that the Delta-v, which measures the change in velocity, was the largest number recorded since the Next Gen made its debut in 2022.
According to Matt Harper, NASCAR managing director of safety systems, it’s also the hardest recorded hit in at least a decade.
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“Delta-v is the measure of speed lost in an incident,” Forde said. “So if you’re going 200 mph and then all of a sudden you come to a stop because you hit a wall and scrub off X amount of speed, that difference is what the Delta-v is. I can’t give out the Delta-v number for Bell. That data is proprietary in a way. We share that with the team and the driver, and that’s their data to do with what they want. But we can confirm that it was the largest number we’ve seen in the Next Gen era.”
Forde said Harper began a remote investigation of the crash on Sunday as soon as data and photos were uploaded from after the incident.
NASCAR did a further review Monday morning of Bell’s car at the Joe Gibbs Racing shop.
Forde said Harper primarily concentrated on the performance of Bell’s restraint systems — particularly the driver’s helmet, the HANS tethers and the foam surrounding his head.
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“A big priority is being put around the head surround foam,” Forde said. “We keep updating this part of the rule book as we learn more and more. The thickness of the head surround is so important. And because we were pleased with how the head surround supported Christopher in this incident, we did a lot of measurements of the type of foam he used, the softness and the thickness. We want to see, ‘Hey, is this sort of the magic number? Is this something that other drivers may want to look at?’ Because this was the biggest hit we’ve ever seen in the Next Gen era, and by and large, Christopher came out of it pretty well. So that’s one of the things we’ll be studying as we move forward.”
The podcast also featured an interview with Chase Brashears, NASCAR director of track services, who discussed how the SAFER barrier was quickly repaired from the impact with Bell’s car and the NASCAR safety team’s response time to the crash scene.
Other topics covered by Forde and Ellis during the 57th episode of “Hauler Talk,” which explores competition issues in NASCAR:
— How Christopher Bell was cleared to race at Pocono Raceway.
— NASCAR’s process for taking four cars to the engine dyno.
— How the 2026 NASCAR In-Season Challenge field will be set after Pocono.
Click on the embed below to listen or search for “Hauler Talk” wherever you download podcasts to hear it on your phone, tablet or mobile device.
Nate Ryan has written about NASCAR since 1996 while working at the San Bernardino Sun, Richmond Times-Dispatch, USA Today Co. and, for the past 10 years, at NBC Sports Digital. He is a contributor to the “Hauler Talk” show on the NASCAR Podcast Network. He has also covered various other motorsports, including the IndyCar and IMSA series.