Last year, when Erik Jones was racing at Nashville Superspeedway, he found himself wrecked into the wall and was running multiple laps down. With race catching the yellow fever, and him trying his best to get on the lead, he found himself in one of the wrecks late in the race. On lap 287, he had to retire his car and was rewarded with a 34th-place finish. This was a tough blow to his playoffs hopes after he missed two races due to a back injury he sustained during the crash at Talladega.
But, with a new year and a new opportunity on the same track, the driver of the #43 car was looking to redeem himself. And he didn’t mind keeping his elbows out to keep his track position and stay up in the field. On lap 119, Erik Jones was holding his own inside the top 10 and looking to continue on the restart. But Christopher Bell, who found himself stranded, decided to pull off a cheeky move, threading the needle in front of the #43 Toyota.
Now, had this been Daytona or Talladega, Jones would’ve let it slide, but this time around, he retaliated and sent his fellow Toyota driver into the wall. In the heat of the moment, he did what he had to do, but as the LMC driver took off his helmet, he was questioning himself if he had crossed the line by putting Bell into the wall.
The collision ignited when Jones found himself pinned in a high-stakes three-wide battle down the back straightaway. Bell’s No. 20 Toyota made contact twice with Jones’ left flank—“He kind of got into me on the straightaway a couple of times. He got in the corner again and really just chopped down on me again. And I was trying to get off, and I couldn’t.” He also explained that he is going to have a chat with Bell and clear the air before things spiral out of control. “Obviously, he’s a fellow Toyota as well, which is not great. I don’t race like that and don’t want to race like that… I hope to talk to him and just tell him, ‘Hey, look, I didn’t want to wreck you.’ Glad to hear he is not too angry about it.”
#NASCAR … Erik Jones on his seventh-place finish at Nashville and also on the contact with the 20. pic.twitter.com/a1GAZ545na
— Dustin Long (@dustinlong) June 2, 2025
Despite trading paint off each other’s doors, both drivers were able to have a decent finish. Jones finished P7, whereas the #20 car, despite the crash, ended inside the top 10. Bell understood that Jones didn’t mean to wreck him; rather, he took the onus on himself, trying to force the issue, which ultimately came back to bite him.
“I felt like I kind of got boxed out by the 22, which the 43 didn’t do anything wrong. He was inside of me, but, ultimately, there wasn’t enough room, and I spun across his nose. So he had the position, and I should have done better,” Bell said after the race. So there’s no bad blood between the two drivers, but the same cannot be said for Carson Hocevar and Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. issues a warning against Hocervar
Unlike the Toyota brothers, who settled their scores after the race, the Chevy teammates, Carson Hocevar and Stenhouse Jr., remain at odds with each other. In Stage 2, the Spire Motorsports driver was too eager to make his way up to the front and was being held up by the #47 Chevy. After some back-and-forth, Hocevar decided to go elbows out on Lap 106 and made a darting run, hugging the yellow line on the inside lane. Stenhouse followed and decided to play defence, only this time around, he found himself spinning on the track and crashing out of the race.
It was the first DNF finish for Stenhouse this year, and it came at the worst possible time as he was closing the gap on the cut line. “I just opened my entry a little bit and he over-charged the corner and drilled us in the rear bumper. I’d say it’s not out of norm from him, but I definitely wasn’t expecting that at that point of the race. It’s just a bummer for us. Bummed our day ended like that. Definitely will have something to do about it at one point.”
Given how the Hyak Motorsports driver reacted last year against Kyle Busch at NWS, fans were expecting punches and brawls. But the driver opted to keep his cool and not risk a penalty at a crucial juncture in the season. Rest assured, if Stenhouse sees the #77 in front of him, we might see more fireworks both on and off the racetrack.
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