By: Zach Catanzareti, Staff Wtiter
Christopher Bell was among the fastest drivers Saturday at Michigan International Speedway. Passing Paul Menard and others to score the lead and hold it for 36 laps, Bell was in contention for a fourth win in the 2019 Xfinity Series season.
That was until communication turned its head during the closing laps of the LTi Print 250, as Bell and crew chief Jason Ratcliff had miscommunication damage their running position. Bell stayed out of pit road while Ratcliff called for a green-flag pit stop on lap 78.
“It was just a miscommunication,” Bell said. “My definition was a little different than what Jason had planned. Ultimately, that was a big hiccup in our day.”
With Michigan often a startegy track, Ratcliff put an extra emphasis on protecting their pit stop calls over the radio.
“This is a track where you can actually play some strategy,” Ratcliff said. “We don’t go to many tracks that you can do that. Everywhere else we go is kind of straightforward. We talked about, ‘If I tell you this, then it means to pit now.’ Just some code words. It’s first-grade stuff and somehow we mixed it up.
“Unfortunately, it was poor execution on my part. I think we had a good performance today after a little bit of a struggle last week in Pocono. I felt like our car had speed so we’ll just build in that and go on to Iowa.”
With close competition on Saturday, Bell knew it was a tough task to come back from a pit error. The No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota managed a 13th-place finish.
“The No. 00 (Cole Custer) blew our doors off so we just have to get faster,” Bell said. “That’s our biggest thing and for whatever reason on the bigger tracks right now, I don’t have the speed that the No. 00 has. We just have to keep working hard and get our Rheem Supra to be a little bit faster and it will be easy to clean up the miscommunication there.”