Christopher Bell says he hopes Kyle Larson loses the power steering in his race car after learning the Hendrick Motorsports driver downplayed the adversity he faced last weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Larson’s comments came on the podcast Stacking Pennies with Corey LaJoie and Ryan Flores. When Bell’s power steering issue was addressed during the show, Larson responded, “There is no chance that Christopher Bell is hanging on to a race car with no power steering. When people say no power steering, you have some power steering.”
One of the show’s hosts then said that Bell said it was completely gone, to which Larson responded, “Bullshit!”
“I’ll give him some flowers, but zero percent power assist on an intermediate, no way,” Larson said.
When Bell was told Larson downplayed his situation during the South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Bell responded, “Well, I hope it happens to him so he can talk about it.”
Bell said the power steering loss in his car was a “slow degradation” that began late in Stage two.
Icon Sportswire
Christopher Bell (#20) trails behind Chase Briscoe (#19) at Las Vegas.
“It went from 50 percent assist to 20 percent assist to the stall moment,” Bell said. “I really don’t know if I had 10 percent assist, 20 percent assist, all I know is that I couldn’t turn the car.
“One thing that was interesting was that under yellow, I would get some amount of power steering back. So, like swerving tires or just driving around under yellow, it would be somewhat there. Then the moment that we would get up to speed, I would have one corner where it was kind of somewhat there, and then it would go away again. I have no idea how much power steering I had or how little power steering I had.”
Bell, who trails standings leader Larson by 55 points with five races remaining, admits the Las Vegas race was “disheartening” because they had their opportunity stolen by a part failure.
“It was a part that had been tested and I believe it was a part that nobody had, had an issue with in the past,” Bell said. “It was nobody’s fault.”
After Bell’s car lost its power steering, the JGR driver equated the race to running a marathon.
“I knew quitting wasn’t an option,” Bell said. “I just had to run the pace that I could drive the car to finish the race.”
Chris Graythen//Getty Images
Bell said he was fortunate the power steering failure occurred at a 1.5-mile speedway and not a short track, such as Martinsville or Bristol where it would have been more detrimental. Bell explained that the corners’ large size allowed his car to turn itself.
“I really couldn’t turn the wheel further than it wanted to go, so I just had to slow my pace down until the car would just track the corner,” Bell explained. “It was just a matter of using the camber and the caster and the setup on the car to make the corner. It wasn’t much fun, that’s for sure.”
Bell is thankful the power steering loss didn’t occur two weeks earlier due to the continued healing of his left wrist that he broke in June. He said it was not a limiting factor in the Las Vegas race.
“On Monday my shoulders and my hands were the big things that hurt from gripping the wheel a lot harder than I’m used to, and then, obviously, the effort that it took to turn the car through the corners. My arms were really fatigued,” Bell said.
“Honestly, the biggest price that I paid was on new tires. As the tires degraded and got older, I could manage a lot better, but I just couldn’t turn the car.”
A North Carolina native, Deb Williams is an award-winning motorsports journalist who is in her fourth decade covering auto racing. In addition to covering the sport for United Press International, she has written motorsports articles for several newspapers, magazines and websites including espnW.com, USA Today, and The Charlotte Observer. Her awards include the American Motorsports Media Award of Excellence, two-time National Motorsports Press Association writer of the year, and two-time recipient of the Russ Catlin award. She also has won an award in the North Carolina Press Association’s sports feature category. During her career, Deb has been managing editor of GT Motorsports magazine and was with Winston Cup Scene and NASCAR Winston Cup Scene for 18 years, serving as the publication’s editor for 10 years. In 2024 she was inducted into the NMPA Hall of Fame.