AVONDALE, Ariz. — Do we hear four in a row for Christopher Bell?
In an era where the cars are essentially the same — parity has been a catchphrase in the NASCAR Cup Series since the move to the Next Gen car in 2022 — Christopher Bell’s three-race winning streak is remarkable.
And it may not be over.
The idea of him winning next weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for a fourth consecutive win seems, as they say in Vegas, almost even money, considering how good he has been at that track. He’s scored two runner-up results in the last three races, including last year’s playoff race when he led the most laps but was beat by Joey Logano, who stretched his fuel.
Christopher Bell wins third consecutive in Cup, outdueling Denny Hamlin at Phoenix Raceway
Joe Gibbs Racing star edges his teammate with a last-lap pass for the lead.
Should Bell win this coming weekend at Las Vegas, he would be the first Cup driver to win four in a row since Jimmie Johnson did it in the 2007 playoffs.
“That’s incredibly special to hear that and know that I have that opportunity ahead of me,” Bell said Sunday after his 12th career Cup win. “We’re going to a darn good place for it.
“This sport has become so incredibly tough with the parity that we have. The teams are so tight. The cars are really tight. The drivers are tight. Like, everybody performs at a high level. … I’m just kind of in disbelief that I have that opportunity, but I’m looking forward to it.’
Bell’s path to three in a row and maybe more shows the growth of a driver who was taken into Toyota’s development program in 2014. Toyota has not invested more in any driver than Bell. But
Bell admits there was a time when he wondered if he would make it in asphalt racing after a youth spent racing on dirt.
“Between Tyler (Gibbs, Toyota Racing Development president ), Jack Irving (TRD general manager), David Wilson (retired TRD president), they were the three guys that took a chance on me back in 2014,” Bell said. “It’s unbelievable to look back. In 2014, it seemed like it was so far away to be here today in this moment.
“Looking back at it, it felt like it happened overnight. I just remember going through those years of the dirt cars and getting that first contract that I got from Toyota Racing Development saying I was going to run 15 Late Model races. We’re going to try to make you a stock car driver. I’m like, How is this going to happen?”
Bell won five of his first 10 Late Model races and began his journey to being a stock car driver — a top stock car driver — but it wasn’t easy.
He moved to the Truck Series in 2016 with Kyle Busch Motorsports. William Byron was his teammate. Byron won seven races that season and moved to the Xfinity Series. Bell won once and stayed in trucks.
“He kicked my butt,” Bell said of Byron, who at age 18 at the time was three years younger than Bell.
Bell felt the pressure to succeed at age 21 with Chase Elliott (then 20) already in Cup and Erik Jones (then 20) announced in August 2016 as moving to Furniture Row Racing’s Cup team for the following season.
“I was like, ‘Man, I have to get to the Cup Series tomorrow, otherwise I’m not going to make it,’” Bell said.
When the season ended, Bell had a talk with Busch.
“I said, ‘Kyle, I have to be paired with (Byron’s) team, I need to prove to myself or learn to myself if I can do this or not. If I can’t do this, I’m going to try and be a sprint car driver,’” Bell said.
“Kyle I think had reservations of pairing me with (crew chief) Rudy Fugle for 2017. Thank God he did. It elevated me to become the Truck Series champion and on to the Xfinity Series.
What NASCAR drivers said after Phoenix Cup race won by Christopher Bell
Here is what drivers were talking about after Sunday’s NASCAR Cup race at Phoenix Raceway.
Bell moved to Cup in 2020 with Leavine Family Racing. He joined Joe Gibbs Racing in 2021 and was paired with crew chief Adam Stevens, but things were challenging. COVID in 2020 led to reduced weekend schedules for Cup and the end of practice at most tracks. The lost track time stunted Bell’s growth. Bell was still behind in 2021 without that additional track time.
As Bell worked to build results, Kyle Larson, who also had come from the dirt ranks and been a rival to Bell, was dominating in Cup. On the way to a 10-win season and the championship, Larson won three races in a row. He was the last Cup driver to do that before Bell’s feat.
“I will never forget 2021, my first year with Adam Stevens,” Bell said. “Kyle Larson won three straight. Me and Adam got off to a rocky patch, rocky start. We’re sitting in his office there at JGR. He looked at me and he said, ‘We can do this. ‘He said, ‘I’ve won three straight sitting in these exact same two chairs,’ talking about him and Kyle Busch. ‘I know we can do it.’ Took a while to get here, but we finally did it.”
Bell has gone on to make the Cup championship race two of the last three years and nearly made it last year. He entered this season as one of the championship favorites and has shown no reason to doubt that when the series returns to Phoenix in November he’ll be among the four racing for a title.
“Christopher Bell is just a ridiculously talented driver,” said Chris Gabehart, JGR’s competition director. “I can’t say enough about how good he is as a driver. When you sprinkle a little confidence on all that, I don’t care if all the parts (of a car) are the same, … (Bell’s team is) just executing really well right now.”
The result is a team that didn’t win the final 18 races of last season — although it had some opportunities to do so — has won three of the first four races this season.
“I think you saw a lot of speed out of the 20 team and the other JGR cars on occasion down the stretch,” Stevens said of the organization’s win drought the second half of last year. “We just weren’t able to convert those into wins. Extremely frustrating. It weighs you down.
“The (playoffs), we had so many opportunities and did everything we needed to do. It just didn’t go our way. What we’ve seen this year, three out of four times it’s gone our way. You have to put yourself in position. Man, you can replay any one of those wins, change one or two things, it’s not you that day.”
But to win this one, Bell had to beat his teammate, Denny Hamlin, passing him on the final lap in an intense battle.
“Whatever they’re doing is just working well,” Hamlin said.
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