HOMESTEAD, Fla.: Before the coronavirus pandemic, Christopher Bell, crew chief Jason Ratcliff and his Leavine Family Racing team were having a rookie season they would like to forget.
But, since the NASCAR Cup Series rebooted last month at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway, the No. 95 Leavine Family Racing team has emerged as one of the most improved organizations over the past eight races.
That continued on Sunday night at Homestead-Miami (Fla.) Motor Speedway, where Bell earned a career-best finish.
Previous to Homestead, Bell racked in two ninth-place efforts at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway and Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway, and while Atlanta and Martinsville didn’t go exactly as planned with finishes of 18th and 28th respectively, the reigning NASCAR Xfinity Series champion has seemed to found his groove again.
Despite a rough draw in qualifying where he started 36th, Bell used the 267-lap race to put his No. 95 Rheem | Smurfit Kappa Toyota Camry on the map during Stage 3 where Ratcliff continued to improve the handling of the race car moving the rookie from inside the top-15 to inside the top-10 when it counted most.
Bell moved into the top-10 near Lap 175 and through a round of green-flag pit stops was able to maintain his track position to carry him to his third top-10 finish of the 2020 season.
“Our Rheem Camry was really, really loose to start the night and then Jason (Ratcliff, crew chief) did a great job adjusting on it got it pretty close to where I was happy and then we were able to pick our way through there,” said Bell. “The races are so long – there are so many yellows – that I really wasn’t worried about our starting position. I knew that if we had a car that was good; we were going to get up front.”
Talking about the recent uptick in the performance of the No. 95 Leavine Family Racing team, Bell attributes the success to everyone working hard and together.
“I think that it’s all just coming together.,” offered Bell. “There was a lot of adjustment over the offseason with Jason (Ratcliff) coming on board, the new partnership with (Joe) Gibbs, so it was just tough to get on the same page.
“I’m not going to say that we’re ready to make the next step, but at least we are being competitive the majority of weeks and we just have to keep it up.”
The NASCAR Cup Series treks to Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway for the GEICO 500 on Jun. 21, and while the Norman, Oklahoma native isn’t particularly fond of superspeedway racing, he’ll take the event with either a good or bad performance and quickly focus ahead on Pocono (Pa.) Raceway – where he feels his team can continue to show major strides.
“Talladega’s not my favorite style of racing.,” he said. “You have to take that one with a grain of salt and get back to work going into Pocono.”
After 12 races, Bell is 24th in the championship standings with 14 races remaining before the 10-race Playoff stretch.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
