AVONDALE, Ariz.—If this year’s NASCAR Cup Playoffs taught Christopher Bell anything, it was never to count the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing team out.
While the 27-year-old racer fell short of winning the title at Phoenix Raceway after finishing 10th, he offered a valiant effort despite racing with a heavy heart.
Just hours before his maiden voyage in the Championship 4, Bell and his teammates discovered the loss of JGR vice chairman and COO Coy Gibbs.
“That was an experience like I’ve never gone through in my entire life,” Bell said. “In that moment you don’t know what’s right and what’s wrong and you don’t know if you should get in the race car and race, if you shouldn’t race.”
Still, there was a task at hand—the Cup Series Championship Race.
The weekend didn’t start according to plan. Bell was 20th on the speed chart on Friday and only improved three spots in Saturday’s time trials. When the green flag fell, Bell was mired in traffic after qualifying 17th.
Of course the Adam Stevens-led team had displayed its resilience before. Twice, in must-win situations, Bell scored walk-off victories at the end of the Round of 12 and the Round of 8.
“I think that the longer that we’re together, the better that we’re going to get to be,” Bell said of the driver/crew chief relationship. “Just his communication, his style of crew chiefing is way different than any other crew chief that I’ve dealt with and drove for in the past.
“The longer we’re together, the more that we understand each other.”
After winning two of the last four races, did Bell have one more miracle in him?
The Fords showed early on they were the class of the field. Joey Logano won the pole. His Penske teammate Ryan Blaney qualified second and would prove to be his wingman throughout the race. In the first 10 laps, Bell worked his way into the top 15. He was 11th by Lap 50 and remained in that position at the end of Stage 1. Logano won the Stage, was first off of pit road and led the first 87 laps.
By July, Bell experienced his sixth pit crew combination. Over the next four months, the No. 20 pit crew jelled, often proving to be the best of the four JGR squads. They executed a stellar first pit stop and Bell lined up ninth for Stage 2 with fellow final four driver Ross Chastain alongside.
Bell picked up two positions on the Lap 69 restart. He passed Chase Elliott for sixth on Lap 78. But Blaney, who had an issue with his air hose during pit stops, was on a mission. He passed Bell before the second caution on Lap 85 and the No. 20 Toyota fell to seventh. Once again, Bell’s pit crew delivered. Although Cole Custer remained out for track position and with a two-tire stop, Erik Jones lined up second, Bell rolled off pit road fifth.
Two laps after the Lap 91 restart, Custer was fading fast. Chastain, who started two positions behind Bell, put the No. 20 car and Chase Elliott in a precarious position forcing Bell high and nearly into Custer. Bell slid backwards. He recovered to 12th by Lap 100. Over the next 44 laps, Bell regained his position in the top 10 and finally reached ninth after William Byron pitted. With various team pit strategies, Bell climbed to eighth by the time Blaney took the lead on Lap 159 and finished the second stage sixth on Lap 186.
With one finals stage to make his move, Bell lined up 12th. Stevens promised Bell he was one stop away from being “in good shape.” Once again, Stevens was prophetic. Tyler Reddick spun before completing the first green lap of Stage 3. Bell gained three spots after the fourth caution. On the Lap 200 restart, Chastain and Elliott battled in the dogleg for fifth with the No. 9 Chevy ending up in the inside wall and out of contention.
Suddenly, Bell was sixth—one spot behind Chastain—for the Lap 205 green flag. Once the field was up to full speed, Blaney checked out. With 100 laps to go, Bell reported he was “down power on the straightaways” and smelled smoke.
“It was a weird sensation for sure,” Bell said. “I’ll have to go back and look at the data and see what we can find, but I just felt a loss of power very quickly and kind of a change of tune with the engine, and then that lasted for a handful of straightaways before it kind of came a little bit back and I didn’t feel like I was at a huge detriment anymore.
Strange, and maybe I was just feeling stuff, I don’t know, but it would be worth looking at for sure to know what exactly what was going on.”
Under the pressure of being his first —and the only Toyota in the title bout—it’s understandable how the gremlins would creep in. But Bell gathered himself for battle, remained eighth and moved to seventh by Lap 230.
As the third of the three remaining contenders, Stevens elected to short pit to put pressure on the other drivers. Bell pitted on Lap 250 forcing the others to come in. He cycled out to fifth after green flag stops. Chastain had an issue with the right rear wheel of his car and dropped to seventh.
Bell climbed to fifth before the sixth and final caution was triggered by Michael McDowell turning Alex Bowman on the backstretch on Lap 268. Bell came down pit road for the money stop only to leave 15th after his tire changer’s finger was caught between the lugnut and spindle.
“That’s pretty much taking your chance away from competing for it,” Bell said. “From what they told me, Caleb, our jackman, got his finger smashed or something, so the last thing we want is an injury on the last race of the year, so I hope he’s okay. It just wasn’t meant to be, and that’s about all you can say.”
With the speed of the Fords, and flawless execution from Logano and the No. 22 Penske team, there was no shot of Bell coming from 15th over 33 green-flag laps. Still, considering the challenges of the day, he finished a career-high third in the standings and has nothing but blue sky ahead.
“I think the season was successful,” Bell said. “To get to the Final 4 is what every driver in NASCAR’s goals are. I’m very proud of that effort. With 40 or 50 to go, the last green flag pit stop we put ourselves in position to race for it. You can’t ask for much more than that.
“Looking towards next year, I think we have potential to be stronger yet, and certainly we have room to improve at Phoenix. Yeah, I’m very content with where we ended the season and proud of the effort on this 20 car. I’m excited about the future with Joe Gibbs Racing.”
Follow Lee Spencer on Twitter @CandiceSpencer
