Christopher Bell’s long journey has him on a road to win 4 cup races in a row since 2007

Avondale, Ariz. – Do we hear four in a row for Christopher Bell?

In an era where the cars are essentially the same is parity has been a phrase in the Nascar Cup series since the move to the next Gen car in 2022-is-Christopher Bell’s winning streak of three breeds.

And it may not be over.

The idea that he wins on Las Vegas Motor Speedway next weekend for a fourth consecutive victory, as they say in Vegas, almost even money, considering how good he was on that track. He scored two runners -up in the last three races, including last year’s play -off match when he led the most rounds, but he was beaten by Joey Logano, who stretched out his fuel.

If Bell was to win Las Vegas this weekend, he would be the first cup driver to win four consecutive since Jimmie Johnson did it in the 2007 playoffs.

“It’s incredibly special to hear that and know that I have the opportunity before me,” Bell said Sunday after his 12th career victory. “We’re going to a good place for that.

‘This sport has become so incredibly difficult with the parity we have. The teams are so stiff. The cars are very stiff. The drivers are stiff. As everyone performs at a high level. … I’m just a kind of disbelief that I have the opportunity, but I look forward to it. ‘

Bell’s path to three in a row and perhaps show more the growth of a manager who was included in Toyota’s development program in 2014. Toyota has no longer invested in any driver as Bell. But
Bell admits that there was a time when he wondered if he would make it in asphalt races after a youth chased on dirt.

“Between Tyler (Gibbs, Toyota Racing Development President), Jack Irving (General Manager of TRD), David Wilson (retired TRD president), they were the three guys who got a chance at me in 2014,” Bell said. “It’s amazing to look back. In 2014, it looked like it was so far away to be here today.

“When I look back, it feels like it happened overnight. I just remember that I went through the years of the dirty cars and got the first contract I got from Toyota Racing development and said I was going to run 15 late model races. We are going to try to make you a stock car driver. I’m like, how’s it going to happen? “

Bell won five of his first ten late model races and started his trip to a car driver – a top 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 was three years younger at the age of 18.

Bell feels the pressure to succeed at the age of 21 with Chase Elliott (then 20) already in the cup and Erik Jones (then 20) announced in August 2016 as the next season to Furniture Row Racing’s Cup team.

“I was like ‘man, I have to get to the cup series tomorrow, otherwise I’m not going to manage it,’ ‘Bell said.

When the season ended, Bell talked to Busch.

“I said, ‘Kyle, I have to be linked to (Byron’s) team, I have to prove to myself or teach myself whether I can do it or not. If I can’t do that, I’m going to try to be a sprint car driver, ” Bell said.

“I think I reserved to connect me to (crew head) Rudy Fugle for 2017. Thank God what He did. It raised me to become the Truck Series champion and to the Xfinity series.

Bell moved to Cup in 2020 with Leavine Family Racing. He joined Joe Gibbs Racing in 2021 and was with the crew chief Adam Stevens, but things were challenging. Covid in 2020 led to reduced weekends for Cup and the end of the exercise on most tracks. The lost track time hampered Bell’s growth. Bell was still behind the additional track time in 2021.

While Bell worked to build results, Kyle Larson, who also came out of the dirty ranks and was a competitor for Bell, dominated in the cup. On the way to a season of ten wins and the championship won three races in a row. He was the last cup manager to do this before Bell’s performance.

“I will never forget 2021, my first year with Adam Stevens,” Bell said. ‘Kyle Larson won three straight. Adam and I came to a rocky patch, Rocky Start. We sit there in his office at JGR. He looked at me and he said, ‘We can do it. “He said,” I won three straight in the same two chairs, “talk about him and Kyle Busch. “I know we can do that.” Took a while to get here, but we finally did. “

Bell made the Cup Championship race two of the past three years and almost made it last year. He has entered this season as one of the championship grids and showed no reason to doubt that when the series returns to Phoenix in November, he will be among the four races for a title.

“Christopher Bell is just a ridiculous talented driver,” says Chris Gabehart, JGR’s competition director. “I can’t say enough about how good he is as a manager. If you sprinkle a little confidence about it, I don’t care if all the parts (of a car) are the same, … (Bell’s team is) just very good at the moment. ‘

The result is a team that did not win the last 18 races of last season – although it had a few opportunities to do so – three of the first four races won this season.

“I think you occasionally saw a lot of speed out of the 20 team and the other JGR cars,” Stevens said of the organization’s victory the second half of last year. “We just couldn’t turn it into victories. Extremely frustrating. It weighs you off.

‘The (play -offs), we had so many opportunities and did everything we had to do. It just didn’t go our way. What we saw this year, three out of four times it is gone. You must put yourself in position. Man, you can repay one of the victories, change one or two things, it’s not you that day. ‘

But to win this one, Bell had to beat his teammate Denny Hamlin and passed him into an intense battle on the last shot.

“Whatever they do is just to work well,” Hamlin said.