Christopher Bell is in a really good place after one race in the NASCAR Cup Series semi-finals but lord did he not feel that way immediately after taking the checkered flag on Sunday at Las Vegas.
The Joe Gibbs Racing No. 20 led 155 of 267 laps, and easily had the dominant car, but was beat on a fuel mileage and clean air gambit by Joey Logano, crew chief Paul Wolfe and the Team Penske No. 22 team. The usually even-keeled Bell let out a big expletive upon crossing the finish line because that’s an obvious win that got away.
It took a lot of fans by surprise but Bell says all he can do is embrace the reaction.
“I mean, I don’t know,” Bell said on Friday at Homestead-Miami Speedway. “I own it. I try to not curse, but in the moment, it was a very passionate … I don’t know, I was overcome by emotion at that time and yeah …
“I don’t know what else to say other than I just didn’t really think about what (all) I was saying, right? It was just emotion, disappointment, and yeah, passion.”
It doesn’t bother him that the raw moment was out there for everyone to digest either.
“I don’t really care,” Bell said. “Normally, I’m not on ‘Radioactive.’ That was one of my first appearances on ‘Radioactive.’ But, yeah, I guess it doesn’t really matter to me. It was a passionate moment, and you know, this sport is full of those. And yeah, I guess I’m glad I contributed once in my life.”
But again, Bell finds himself in a really advantageous spot to advance to the NASCAR Cup Series championship race for the third straight time. Even though he is not locked in, Bell does have a 42 point advantage over the cutline before Homestead and Las Vegas.
Realistically, Bell just needs to finish these next two races and he is right back in the championship race.
“Yeah, I think that’s what we’re planning on,” Bell said. :You know, that’s why you’re in the Round of 8, trying to transfer to the Championship 4. You’re never really safe. The three of us William (Byron), Kyle (Larson) and myself have kind of, the way that the cards fell, we’re kind of essentially point racing each other, and the guys below that are far enough below, they’re basically out of the points and essentially racing for wins.
“Certainly, we’ll know more once we get through Homestead on Sunday night, but, right now, we’re planning on there being three winners and the three of us – William, Kyle and myself – are racing for that last points spot. There’s a good chance William, Kyle or myself could win this weekend and it could change.”
With that said, Bell isn’t taking anything for granted.
“But plus 42 (points) sounds great until you realize every time someone wins, that cutline shrinks more, more and more, or that gap to the cutline,” Bell said. “You’re never safe and it’s going to be a battle. It’s going to be a battle all the way until the checkered flag at Martinsville and, you know, everybody knows how important those wins are. That goes back to last week and why I felt the way I did.”
Ultimately, the reason it really stung is that Bell and crew chief Adam Stevens ran an objectively perfect race at Las Vegas and they just couldn’t control the circumstances that led to their defeat.
“You’ll have that and Adam told me before we even started racing together back in 2021, ‘I can probably count on one hand the amount of times we won with the best car and everything went smoothly,’ and the majority of your wins come from the days where you don’t have the best car or people make mistakes and it falls into your lap,” Bell said. “And, you know, unfortunately, this was one of those deals. And that’s happened a lot to us this year.
“You can start rattling off the races, but there’s been races where we’ve executed and one everything well and didn’t win. So, yeah, that’s why it hurts so bad.”
