Amid the excitement surrounding Ross Chastain's final corner move at Martinsville, Christopher Bell's victory to secure his place in NASCAR's CHAMPIONSHIP4 was almost overlooked. jim_utter explores the Joe Gibbs Racing man's rise ⬇️
The third-year Cup driver at Joe Gibbs Racing had started the season getting caught up in a wreck in the Daytona 500 and a week later retired before half-distance at Fontana with an engine failure.
“I’m like, ‘Dude, I do not know what you’re worried about,” he said. “We have the performance, and the capability is right there, you’re just having trouble seeing it’.” As the season entered the spring and early summer months, Bell found his groove. He put together a string of five consecutive finishes of ninth or better to break into the top-10 of the standings by early June, giving him a chance to make the playoffs even if he didn’t earn a win. But with NASCAR seeing an unprecedented number of different winners to start the year with the Next Gen car, making the playoffs without a victory was no certainty.
Thanks to a timely pit call for four new tyres on the next-to-last caution, Bell barrelled through the field, passed leader Kevin Harvick on the start of overtime and claimed the victory and automatic advancement to the semi-final round. Bell pitted for new tyres on the final caution and lined up sixth on the restart with 24 laps remaining. He then methodically ran down and passed Chase Briscoe with four laps to go to reclaim the lead and held off Larson by 0.869 seconds for the win.
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