Bell Wins at Bristol, Continues JGR Playoff Win Streak
Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images
By Dennis Krause
After notching three straight wins early in the season, Joe Gibbs Racing driver Christopher Bell hit a rough patch midway through the season. He went 24-races without a win and hadn’t had a top five finish since July.
That all changed Saturday night at Bristol Motor Speedway as Bell took the lead on a restart with four laps to go and held off Brad Keselowski for his 13th career NASCAR Cup Series win.
Frustrated that his JGR teammates Denny Hamlin and Chase Briscoe had been leading and winning races, Bell felt he should have been showing the same kind of performance. Bell conceded his Bristol win has him where he wants to be at this stage of the season.
“Well, I will say, even though we didn’t win throughout the summer, I went to the racetrack thinking every week that we could win. So while the results don’t match what I was feeling, I think that this week shows that that is true. Like every single week we go to the racetrack we have the opportunity to win if we put everything together and we do the right stuff.
“It happened tonight. It might happen at Loudon. Even through the bits of the schedule that we didn’t run well, we didn’t finish well, every time we went to the racetrack, I thought that we had potential to win if we did everything right.”
For Bell, just getting a win after 24-winless races, was important.
“Winning, that’s what makes your career,” said Bell. “That’s what makes your status in the industry. That’s literally everything.
“In order to make it in this sport, you have to win. Yeah, frankly, I haven’t won enough. That’s, what, win 12 or 13 in my career? That’s not enough, and I need to win more. But it starts with — every win gets it up a tick so I’m glad we got this one tonight.
“But winning is literally everything. That’s what it’s all about.”
While it was important to get the win, Bell cautions that it doesn’t fix everything as it was just one race, and a unique one at that, given the extreme tire wear teams experienced.
“Well, winning fixes everything, that’s for sure. It’s a huge morale boost for the team and myself as a driver. But certainly what we experienced tonight will mean nothing on what we have for the rest of the year.
“This race is completely unique to itself the way that the tires behaved and the race played out, the strategy calls. You cannot take anything from this and apply it to anywhere else.
“Winning is very important in this sport, and it feels good to get another one.”
Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images
According to Bell, who had some uncharacteristically harsh words for crew chief Adam Stevens regrading the team’s performance following the race at World Wide Technology Raceway, the Bristol win reinforced the resiliency and professionalism of the No. 20 team.
“I just think it — yeah, I think it goes to show that any week it can happen,” Bell commented. “I got really frustrated last week because we had an opportunity to win and we didn’t win. We’ve had several opportunities to win throughout the summer and we didn’t win.
“Every week we can do it, and Adam, while I was frustrated with the calls last week, he nailed every call this week, and we ended up in Victory Lane. You’re going to have that. Tonight was just a perfect example of everybody doing the right things and not making mistakes and keeping us in it. We got the fruit of that.”
Joe Gibbs Racing won each race of the Round of 16 with Briscoe winning at Darlington, Hamlin taking the win at St. Louis and now Bell at Bristol. Is JGR the team to beat for the NASCAR Cup Series championship? Bell says, at this point, it sure looks that way.
“It’s just all the Toyotas are super fast right now. I think I said it last week in my post-race interview that this is the best race cars I’ve had to drive in the Cup Series compared to the competition in my career.
“I think it goes from Joe Gibbs Racing to 23XI; they’ve been really good; even the legacy cars have had an amazing performance the last couple weeks.
“That’s the good news.
“The bad news is we’re not running Phoenix next week and there’s still a long way to go to get there.
“I can promise you, whenever we get to Phoenix it’s not going to be a runaway. No matter who’s in that Final Four it’s always a dogfight. It’s always a good race.
“We are in a really good spot right now, we as in the Toyota group, and specifically Joe Gibbs Racing. But we’ve got a long way to go to get to Phoenix and it’s going to be a hard road, and everybody knows that.”
The Round of 12 gets underway this weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. It’s a track at which Bell and Toyota have had success.
“Yeah, I’m obviously excited about Loudon. It’s a great track for us. Super important race kicking off the Round of 12. So we need to go there and most importantly get a lot of points, score a lot of points, got to qualify well, got to qualify better than we’ve been qualifying, and have a great race.
“I think we’re every bit as capable as any of the other 12 out there. It’s a good racetrack for us as a group and we know what it takes to be good there, and it seems like our cars are really good. I’m looking forward to the challenge ahead.”
Not exactly encouraging news for the competition.
Dennis Krause has spent decades covering all forms of motorsports, including over 40 Indianapolis 500s, with stints at WIBA Radio, PIT PASS - Radio’s Premier Motorsports Magazine and Motorsports Minute. Follow him on X @DennisKrause500 or motorsportsminute.bluesky.social or motorsportsminute on Threads or MotorsportsMinute+ on Facebook.