MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- Christopher Bell says he's patched up any fraught feelings with sometime Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Erik Jones after their late-race run-in last weekend at Kansas Speedway.
Bell's decisive move last Saturday netted his first victory in the NASCAR XFINITY Series, where he'll drive full-time next year for JGR. But it left Jones with damage, frustration and just a 15th-place finish to show for leading 186 of 200 laps.
"Me and Erik, we're fine," Bell said Friday afternoon from Martinsville Speedway, where the Round of 6 begins for the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Playoffs. "I reached out to him after the race and we're fine. Our relationship is kind of how it was before that. There's no grudges held, or at least that I know of."
Bell's aggressive tactic with four laps remaining was the subject of debate in the post-race aftermath. The 22-year-old Oklahoman made an asphalt-track interpretation of the classic dirt-track "slide job" to take the lead, drifting up from the bottom lane into Jones' path on the high lane of the 1.5-mile track.
Jones kept his head of steam and crashed into the back of Bell's car, sparking "what-if" theories about whether Jones could have slowed to avoid the contact or veered back to the low side in a crossover move.
"Going back to the move, I don't know," Bell said. "He's not a dirt racer and I am a dirt racer, so maybe that was just two backgrounds clashing right there. But I executed my move to exactly how I wanted to do it, and I felt like I left him multiple options to get a different outcome. That's what I'm going to leave it at."
Contributing: Zack Albert
Sauter looks to bounce back at Martinsville Johnny Sauter cemented his position in the Championship 4 last season with a win at Martinsville. His momentum continued the following weekend with a victory celebration at Texas and wrapped up the season clinching his first Camping World Truck Series trophy with a third-place finish at Homestead. Fast forward to now, the veteran driver enters Saturday's playoff race at Martinsville with back-to-back lackluster performances at Las Vegas (10th) and Talladega (12th). Although he sits in second place in the postseason standings, he is 20 points behind leader Christopher Bell. A big gap to makeup and it starts with the Texas Roadhouse 200. "I'm just looking to finish the race," Johnny Sauter said ahead of the Truck Series first practice. "The last few weeks have been pretty rough. You know you race against guys that I probably wouldn't let them ride my kid's dirt bike ... we just have to try and survive this race." Sauter understands the importance of having previous success to lean on while piloting around the short-track, and hopes Saturday's race at "The Paperclip" can be just as much of a catalyst to a second championship as it was in 2016 postseason run. "Martinsville's been a really good racetrack to me," Sauter said. "... this is where we kind of got on a roll (last year). Martinsville is the perfect place for me to start the second round. We've just been really, really good here through the years. A lot of things can happen. As I've mentioned before, I think it's really important to qualify well here because I really think it really helps your pit strategy." Ben Rhodes riding confidence into Round of 6 A victory at Las Vegas catapulted Ben Rhodes into the Round of 6, but he currently sits outside the provisional Championship 4 in fifth position -- just one playoff point behind both John Hunter Nemechek and and Thor Sports teammate Matt Crafton. The 20-year-old finished 20th at the short-track in the spring and only has one career top-1o (eighth) that came three years ago. With only four starts under his belt here, Saturday's race poses a lot of unknowns for Rhodes. Yet, the confidence from winning his first Camping World Truck Series race in the last round is a confidence booster for not just him, but the entire team. "I feel like Martinsville has been a fast track for me in the past, but I don't have the results to show," Rhodes said ahead of Friday's first practice. " ... Survival for me is what's going to get us that finish. I think we are trying some new stuff this weekend and I'm hoping that will translate to more speed. ... If I can qualify up front I think the race will go way better for me than it has in the past." Survive and advance seems to the motto for several drivers at Martinsville, including fellow playoff driver Sauter. With a position to chase a championship trophy on the line, Rhodes believes his performance behind the wheel can go one of two ways: In or gone. Ain't no other way around it. " ...we can certainly take ourselves out of the playoffs more so than boosting ourselves forward."