"Like nobody was coming": Kevin Harvick acquits Carson Hocevar in controversial Christopher Bell incident

Christopher Bell's race result was seemingly compromised after suffering damage because of contact with Carson Hocevar at Darlington. Bell, in for a pit stop, was leaving his stall when Hocevar, also in for a pit stop, hit the #20.

The JGR driver suffered significant damage, which eventually came at the cost of his race result, 29th place. Following the race, Bell expressed his frustration with Hocevar and his team.

However, during a recent episode of the Happy Hour podcast, Kevin Harvick didn't exactly share his opinion. The former NASCAR driver claimed that while Christopher Bell was frustrated after the race, it wasn't entirely the Spire youngster's fault.

"I will tell you that Hocevar, what did he finish? He finished ninth. I think when you look at these scenarios, the crew chief on the top of the pit box or the spotter is responsible for helping the driver get out of the pit box. But I can't ever remember a time when I wasn't looking in my mirror and didn't know who was pitted around me and what was going on and could see a car that was out of line.

"So I don't think Hocevar did anything wrong. I think that the call out of the pit box was probably aggressive.... Bell just pulled right out of there like nobody was coming and with the way that the mirrors and everything work, you can use them to be able to get out of your pit box and pay attention," Harvick described.

Harvick claimed that while the situation was unfortunate for Christopher Bell, some of the responsibility lies with the #20 team for that incident.

Christopher Bell comments on his incident with Carson Hocevar in Darlington

In a post-race interview at Darlington, Christopher Bell shared his thoughts on his incident with Carson Hocevar in the pit lane. He revealed that he had a conversation with his crew chief, Adam Stevens, and the more that he thought about it, the more frustrated his crew chief got.

"The picture that I see is that he wasn't going to gain a spot on pit road. He should have been able to give way to the playoff cars," Bell claimed, via Motorsports.

Having said that, Bell mentioned that he didn't blame the Spire driver entirely, as he was only following what he was being told. He admitted that he didn't know all the details of where he was on the track, but pointed to the fact that it was Hocevar who brought out the caution.

Christopher Bell further said that his crew chief told him, if Hocevar was 'tucked up to the field,' he would've been in his pit box. Owing to this, he was still behind in the field and not engaging in a pit road race, a potential scenario that further frustrated the JGR driver.

Bell pointed to Hocevar's team not providing the right instructions to its driver to give way to cars exiting their pit box and racing for position.