Christopher Bell relates to Corey Day’s impending NASCAR debut

Christopher Bell can relate a little bit to what Corey Day is about to experience on Thursday night as a successful Sprint Car and Midget racer making his debut Truck Series appearance.

On one hand, Bell spent way more time in ARCA and Late Models than Day has to this point, with the latter only running one Late Model event and just one ARCA race at Salem, a track similar to where he will run on Thursday at Bristol.

Day will also run the ARCA race at Bristol just hours before his Truck Series debut for the extra repetitions but Bell says pit stops and race length will be the biggest initial challenges beyond his race craft.

“It’s going to be really fun to watch,” Bell said. “Corey is really talented. What really stood out to me when I was coming into NASCAR and pavement racing in general was the race distance. Bristol, I think is one of the shortest races on the Truck schedule but it’s still 200 laps and much longer than any race he’s ever done except maybe his ARCA races.

“And then pit road, ARCA doesn’t do live pit stops so this week will be his first time having to execute pit stops and pit road. When I was in the truck series, I would get so nervous when the caution would come out because I knew I would have to hit pit road because there is a lot to it and a mistake could end your race. You have to dot your Is and cross your Ts and the smallest mistake would ruin your race in a hurry.”

Day, 18, is one of the most decorated young Sprint Car racers to come through that discipline in quite awhile with Kyle Larson even suggesting the talent at the same age was comparable. As a result, Day has already been signed to a development contract by Hendrick Motorsports and the races in the Truck Series will come with Bill McAnally Racing.

If Day takes to the discipline, it’s expected that he will have a robust full-time pavement schedule next season.

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