Christopher Bell heard he’d be fired after bad 2022 NASCAR season start. Win fixes that
Christopher Bell saw an unexpected comeback turn into an unexpected win on Sunday, and with that, an unexpected chance to advance into the Round of 8 in NASCAR’s Cup Series playoffs.
But Bell’s comeback from the beginning of the season might be what’s most unbelievable of all.
About an hour after the Joe Gibbs Racing driver did his celebratory donuts at the start-finish line, his revitalized season going up in the best kind of smoke, the driver of the No. 20 car opened up about his early season struggles, a journey he said Sunday made his win at Charlotte Motor Speedway’s Roval course even sweeter.
“The first 10 races of the season, I knew that our performance and our capability was there, but like you said, we had a lot of things working against us,” Bell said. “And whenever we left, I wanna say Atlanta — I don’t remember what race Atlanta was in the season — but three or four races in, we were positioned last in the points standings.”
He added: “I think a lot of people had written me off as a driver and written the 20 car off as, ‘Christopher is gonna get fired.’ I got that all the time, that I’m getting replaced. That the 20 car is a revolving door and I was gonna be outta here.
“Maybe I’ll get to stick around a little bit longer now.”
Bell’s finishes at the beginning of 2022 weren’t good: He finished 34th at the Daytona 500, then 36th at the Auto Club race in California. He followed that up with a top-10 run in Las Vegas, but then notched two plus-20 finishes at Phoenix (26) and Atlanta (23).
That was his team’s lowest point.
A lot has happened since that race. Bell saw at least six changes to his pit crew team. He started having better results and eventually became the 14th different winner of the season at New Hampshire — chasing down regular-season points champion Chase Elliott to do that — but doubts lingered, nonetheless.
In the playoffs, he slithered through the first round thanks to good showings in points (an average finish of 4.0) and non-playoff drivers winning races. And then, crew chief Adam Stevens said, came an ugly second round.
“The low was Texas not going our way,” said Stevens, who was seated next to victorious employer, Joe Gibbs, on Sunday. “We felt like we could go to Texas and be a factor for the win. We didn’t have a great practice day, but really righted the ship once the race set up. We felt like we had good speed and balance to go up and race for it, and then just started blowing tires.”
He added: “This round was gonna be the hard round for us, and we knew it. We probably made it a little harder than it could’ve been.”
This hard second round was supposed to be punctuated on a discouraging note at the Roval. It’s where Bell heard — and in some ways, believed — similar refrains of uncertainty: Toyotas aren’t good on road courses, he heard. It’s the worst time and place to be in a must-win situation for Bell, who had finished 24th and then 8th at the Roval in his previous two tries.
And for much of the race, those thoughts seemed right. He ran in 10th to 12th most of the race, resigned to his fate.
But then came a caution with six laps to go. Then came some top-of-the-field carnage — including Elliott spinning out — and then Bell found himself in second. Then he beat Kevin Harvick off a restart and pulled away from the field, doing what needed to be done to keep his playoff season alive. And then he won.
Despite all that has happened, Bell said his team’s story isn’t over. The third round of the payoffs — Las Vegas, Homestead, Martinsville — feature three tracks where he’s confident to be in the mix to win, he said.
“I don’t think we’re done,” he said. “A two-win season is not our end goal, and I think we’re certainly capable of more. I want to be a household name in the Cup Series, and hopefully this is just the start.”
