Dale Earnhardt Jr. gives hot take on Erik Jones, Christopher Bell dust-up in Nashville

Erik Jones made contact with Christopher Bell while battling for fifth place off the Lap 119 restart in this past Sunday’s race at Nashville Superspeedway. Jones defended the bottom line in Turn 1 and the contact resulted in Bell making slight contact with the wall.

When you watch the incident, it looks like Jones gave Bell zero room in the corner. Dale Earnhardt Jr., who called the race on Prime Video, viewed it differently. For starters, Jones’ race up to that point had been stellar. On top of that, before Bell was winning races in the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 20 Toyota, that was Jones’ seat.

Should Jones have made room for Bell? Earnhardt sees why Jones didn’t.

“Erik Jones has not been able to run in the top five all that often this year. Erik Jones is sitting there having one of the best nights he’s had all year. He’s running really good,” Earnhardt said. “He gets a run off of Turn 4, goes to the inside of the 20 [Bell]. … C Bell blocks him all the way to the apron and what kind of car is C Bell driving in this scenario? That’s Erik’s old car. You don’t think that still stings a little bit? Erik Jones was probably thinking, ‘Hey, man. You’re driving my old car. I don’t get to run up here that often. You ain’t fu*king blocking me into this corner. That’s bullsh*t.’

“And so, Erik stayed in the gas and entered Turn 1 super shallow because he was forced down there but he’s not gonna give up that position he has on the quarter panel of the 20. They go down there, and Erik may have missed the corner but either way, Erik gets up the corner and the 20 gets wrecked.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr. defends Erik Jones in contact with Christopher Bell at Nashville

Bell rebounded from the contact with Jones to score a 10th-place finish. Jones finished seventh. Bell did say that Jones “didn’t do anything wrong” and admitted that he “should have done better.” Earnhardt said that if he had the chance to speak with Bell, he would have asked him, “What did you expect him [Jones] to do?”

“I’m gonna tell you right now, there was a couple times in my career where I got wrecked, in my mind, and I see Tony [Eury] Sr. and I’m thinking I’m gonna walk up to him and he’s gonna go, ‘Fu*k that guy for wrecking you.’ And I walk up to him, and he goes, ‘What the hell were you thinking running on the door of that guy or running so tight on him.’ He was like, ‘You could have avoided that. You should have known better,'” Earnhardt said.

“I think that’s what I would do in this case is I would look at C Bell and go, ‘Damn, dude. What did you expect him to do? You’re driving his old car. He’s still a little pi--ed about that and you blocked him to the apron. He runs in the top five once every 15 races.'”