Three in a row! Christopher Bell wins at Phoenix, earns third straight NASCAR victory

Christopher Bell made it to Victory Lane for the third straight week.

The 30-year-old NASCAR driver held off Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson in a thrilling finish to the Cup Series’ Shriners Children’s 500 at Phoenix Raceway on Sunday.

It marks the third consecutive race in which Bell is victorious, and the Joe Gibbs Racing standout becomes the first Cup Series driver to win three straight races since Larson in 2021.

“How about that one, race fans?,” an energized Bell said on pit road after the race. “Oh, my gosh, man. Whenever you’re sitting there dreaming it up, that’s about as ugly as it gets. You put the red tires on, you’re like, All right, what I don’t want to happen is go 20, 30 laps, get a yellow. That happened. Then we went 10 more laps, had another yellow.

“It was all about who could get clear on the restart. Neither of us could. We were racing really, really hard there coming to the line. (Joe Gibbs Racing) ran 1-2, how about that?”

Hamlin earned a second-place finish after battling Bell for the lead late. Larson finished in third, Josh Berry fourth and Chris Buescher fifth.

Katherine Legge makes historic NASCAR Cup start

Katherine Legge became the first woman to start in a Cup Series race since Danica Patrick in 2018.

Piloting the No. 78 Chevrolet for Live Fast Motorsports, the Mooresville-based NASCAR team, Legge passed several cars after spinning by herself to bring out the race’s first caution. She recorded a P30 finish after initially starting at the tail of the field.

“It was a really rough start,” Legge told reporters outside the infield care center. “We made some changes to the car overnight, and they were awful. I was hanging on, I was so loose, and we kept making adjustments and making the car way more stable for me. And at the end there, I think we were relatively quick compared to the field. I wish we hadn’t made the changes, but we’re trained to find some pace, and we found it throughout the race. But it was a rough start.

“Baptism of fire. There are a lot of positives to take from it. Obviously there were mistakes made, but I learned so much and hopefully I get to come back and do it again.”

Results from the NASCAR Cup Series race at Phoenix

Lap-by-lap updates of the Shriners Children’s 500

Lap 312: Christopher Bell wins for the third straight week!

Lap 310: Restart coming up with two to go! Christopher Bell and Denny Hamlin lead.

Lap 303: And there it is already! Ty Gibbs gets into the wall and brings out another caution. Late restart coming up!

Lap 302: Can Christopher Bell do it again? The Joe Gibbs Racing driver is 10 laps away from winning three straight races, becoming the first driver in four years to win three races in a row (Kyle Larson).

Lap 296: Back to green! Christopher Bell leads once again.

Lap 289: Caution! Ryan Blaney has an engine problem.

Lap 282: Chris Buescher moves up into the Top Five.

Lap 276: Christopher Bell, looking to win three straight races, brings us back to green alongside Denny Hamlin!

Lap 270: Ty Dillon and Tyler Reddick got penalized on pit road.

Lap 266: Caution for debris after the No. 23 car hit the wall.

Lap 244: Ryan Preece leads Christopher Bell by roughly 2.47 seconds.

Your Top 10: Preece (on option tires), Bell, Tyler Reddick, Ty Dillon (option), William Byron, Erik Jones (option), Joey Logano, Denny Hamlin, Ryan Blaney nad Kyle Larson.

Lap 236: Ryan Preece, on option tires, gets past Christopher Bell for the race lead! Ty Dillon is up into P5.

Lap 223: Back to green! Christopher Bell leads ahead of Tyler Reddick, Kyle Larson, Joey Logano and William Byron.

Lap 215: Katherine Legge spins again as she was being lapped by Josh Berry. Daniel Suárez couldn’t avoid the contact and drove into the No. 78 car.

Lap 194: Back to green! Joey Logano leads with the front of the pack on option tires.

Lap 186: Earning points following the second stage: Christopher Bell, Joey Logano, William Byron, Ryan Blaney, Tyler Reddick, Denny Hamlin, Austin Cindric, Daniel Suárez, Kyle Larson and Josh Berry.

Stage 2

Lap 185: Christopher Bell wins Stage 2!

Lap 183: Christopher Bell leads near the end of the stage.

Lap 176: Christopher Bell is close to running down Joey Logano for the lead!

Lap 150: Thirty-six laps remain in the second stage, and Joey Logano’s lead is roughly 2.45 seconds over Christopher Bell.

Lap 139: Joey Logano leads on option tires! The No. 22 car has a lead of more than two seconds over Christopher Bell and William Byron.

Your Top 10: Logano, Bell, Byron, Daniel Suárez, Austin Cindric, Tyler Reddick, Kyle Larson, Ryan Blaney, Denny Hamlin and Ryan Preece.

Lap 127: Christopher Bell leads as Joey Logano flies back into the Top Five on the option tires. He’s up into second place, ahead of William Byron, Daniel Suárez and Austin Cindric.

Lap 113: William Byron and Christopher Bell lead the field back to green! Daniel Suárez and Austin Cindric run behind them.

Lap 110: Getting close to restarting following the big wreck that took seven cars off the track.

Lap 99: Right back under caution! Big crash in the back of the field. Ty Gibbs got into Justin Haley, who sent Chase Briscoe into Carson Hocevar to start a pileup. Riley Herbst went spinning, as did the cars of Brad Keselowski, Austin Dillon, Shane Van Gisbergen, Noah Gragson and several others.

Lap 99: Back to green, Christopher Bell jumps out in front of William Byron for the lead!

Lap 92: Michael McDowell has a flat right rear tire and smacked the wall in Turn 4, bringing the race under caution for the fourth time.

Lap 89: Austin Cindric passes William Byron for the lead — the first time he has led at Phoenix.

Lap 86: William Byron continues leading, and we’re seeing Goodyear’s tire selection be critical early at Phoenix. Austin Cindric, on the option tire, is up into second place, while Justin Haley has surged into the Top Five on the softer tire as well.

Lap 72: Green for Stage 2! William Byron gets back out into the lead.

Lap 62: William Byron earned the stage victory over Tyler Reddick and Ryan Preece, who drove from P33 to a third-place finish.

Your points-getters following Stage 1: Byron, Reddick, Preece, Christopher Bell, Ryan Blaney, Josh Berry, Carson Hocevar, Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson.

Stage 1

Lap 60: William Byron wins Stage 1!

Lap 59: William Byron is closing in on the stage win, having led all but five laps of the race as Joey Logano had led before his penalty.

Lap 49: William Byron and Tyler Reddick remain out in front, and Ryan Preece is up into third as Stage 1 nears its conclusion at Phoenix.

Lap 38: Ryan Preece has surged all the way into the Top Five after restarting in P33.

Your Top 10: William Byron, Tyler Reddick, Josh Berry, Preece, Christopher Bell, Carson Hocevar, Ryan Blaney, Denny Hamlin, Erik Jones and Chase Elliott.

Lap 19: Joey Logano is hit with a pass-through penalty for going below the yellow line prior to the start/finish line on the restart. Significant penalty to the race leader, who heads down pit road under green. William Byron moves back into the lead, ahead of Tyler Reddick, Josh Berry and Carson Hocevar.

Lap 15: Green again! Joey Logano, piloting the green No. 22 Hunt Brothers Pizza Ford for Team Penske, gets past William Byron for the lead. Carson Hocevar has speed once again in P3.

Lap 10: Ricky Stenhouse Jr. goes around after Cole Custer got loose, sending the No. 41 car into Todd Gilliland and Stenhouse. Second caution of the race is out.

Lap 9: Back to green — and under caution once again!

Lap 4: Caution! Katherine Legge spins by herself in the back of the field. She keeps going, but the yellow flag had come out.

Green flag, 3:44 p.m.: Let’s go racin’ in Arizona! William Byron and Joey Logano jump out early.

3:32 p.m.: “I know I’m ready, I know you’re ready, so I’ve only got one thing to say: ‘Drivers! Start your engines!“ Grayson, a Shiners Children’s patient, gets us started in the desert!

3:28 p.m.: Invocation and national anthem are complete! Racin’ is coming up soon at Phoenix.

3:25 p.m.: The NASCAR Cup Series is back at the track that hosts its championship race.

Michael McDowell’s No. 71 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet is the only car that has been dropped to the rear ahead of the Shriners Children’s 500, set to green in roughly 25 minutes.

Charlotte native William Byron beats reigning champ for pole

William Byron has the fastest car at one of the most important tracks on the NASCAR schedule.

The stakes will be different when the Cup Series returns to Phoenix Raceway for its championship race Nov. 2, but the 27-year-old Charlotte native won the pole position for the Shriners Children’s 500 that starts at 3:30 p.m. Sunday.

Byron, who leads the Cup standings entering Sunday, edged reigning series champion Joey Logano for the top starting position for the spring Cup race at Phoenix.

“It’ll be worse than (Saturday), but I think this place is just starting to age and we’ve had hotter races than this weekend for sure,” Byron said. “Like the last few, we’ve had some 90-degree races, so it’s not going to be as bad as that. But I think this track is starting to get some really good age to it. It is still difficult to pass because there is no banking to lean on, especially in (turns) one and two.

“If you want to be aggressive, it’s hard to be, but you’re seeing the apron start to become a bigger deal and I just think the racetrack is starting to lose grip. So you’ll have more wear because of that.”

While Christopher Bell has won two of the three races this season, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver only sits fourth in the Cup Series standings. Recent Cup champion Ryan Blaney enters Sunday in second, followed by reigning regular-season champion Tyler Reddick in third.

Logano, who enters Sunday at 12th in the standings, had a P34 finish in last year’s spring race at the mile-long track in suburban Phoenix. There are a number of variables that make the two races there different, but it takes a fast car to record a win.

“You just have to do a good job taking notes afterward of what did what, and make sure you know,” Logano said. “Because we don’t know that this is going to be the tire coming back, right? In the same way, you can’t say whoever wins the race on Sunday is going to be the championship favorite when they come back here. I don’t remember what we ran in the spring last year, but it wasn’t pretty. I remember that. It was mid-pack.

“And we came back and were dominant when we came back. A year later, or a season later, obviously. So I don’t know if I’d call this winner here the dominant favorite to win the whole thing. There’s just too many things that can change. There’s just too much. It’s kind of hard. So we’ll just take the best notes we possibly can from everything.”

Odds and prediction for the Shriners Children’s 500

Christopher Bell is the favorite to win Sunday’s race at +500 odds on DraftKings Sportsbook, followed by Ryan Blaney (+550), Kyle Larson (+850), William Byron (+1000) and Chase Elliott (+1000).

Charlotte Observer NASCAR reporter Shane Connuck is picking Larson to get his first victory of the season. It’s a matter of time before the Hendrick Motorsports driver gets to Victory Lane, and why not at Phoenix? He’s recorded Top Five finishes in six of his past eight starts on intermediate tracks. Larson was the runner-up to Blaney — who finished second to Logano a year later — and I believe we’ll see him drive from his P17 start to his first win of another big season on Sunday.

How to watch the NASCAR Cup race at Phoenix

Race: Shriners Children’s 500

Place: Phoenix Raceway

Track Length: 1 Mile Asphalt Oval

Date: Sunday, March 9

Time: 3:30 p.m. ET

Purse: $11,055,250

TV: FS1 & FOX Deportes, 2 p.m. ET

Radio: MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR (Channel 90)

Distance: 312 miles (312 Laps)

Stages: Stage 1 ends on Lap 60; Stage 2 ends on Lap 185; and the Final Stage ends on Lap 312.

Starting lineup for the Shriners Children’s 500

This story was originally published March 9, 2025 at 5:00 AM.

Shane Connuck

The Charlotte Observer

Shane Connuck is a former journalist for The Charlotte Observer