Christopher Bell 1-on-1: ‘Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d be in the Cup Series’

Christopher Bell pulled off the upset a year ago on the Charlotte road course in a walk-off moment to advance to the Round of 8.

Three weeks later, he pulled off the upset at Martinsville Speedway in a walk-off moment to advance to the Championship 4.

Bell is 22 points above the cutline entering the Charlotte road-course race this weekend, so he won’t need a victory to advance. That should make him feel good. But there have been plenty of moments this year that have made Bell, whose sole victory came at the Bristol dirt race, feel not so good.

The Joe Gibbs Racing driver spoke with FOX Sports about his season, the upsets from a year ago and being a NASCAR driver from Oklahoma, not necessarily a stock-car racing hotbed.

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What stands out from Charlotte and Martinsville to you a year later from those incredible days?

Just the commitment from the team going into both of those races significantly below the cutline and showing up with excellent race cars and at places that I hadn’t really run well at in the past. The team put their best foot forward and executed on all fronts. The pit crew did really good last year, the mechanics were able to build an amazing piece, the engineers dialed the setup in. Going into those races, I know that I was not favored to win because I didn’t feel like I could win myself. And the fact that we did instilled a lot of confidence in myself and all the team around me as well.

Most people would hope for maybe one win-and-in moment, maybe, over five years, and you put them back-to-back. Is any part of that surreal?

Yeah, it really is. I remember winning in Phoenix back in 2018 in the Xfinity Series to make the final four how crazy that was. I had watched the Cup Series for a period of time, and I don’t know that I ever recall the win to transfer — maybe Chase Elliott did and I think maybe Kevin Harvick. But that didn’t happen very often. And I was able to do it back-to-back — that was insane and definitely something that I understand is not expected and hard to do.

Is there anything that you felt like in your career prepared you for those moments, either stock cars or sprint cars?

Just being put under pressure consistently is what prepares you for those pressure-packed moments. If it was my first time competing in a big event, competing under pressure, I’m sure that I would have folded. But my entire life, I have been fortunate enough to race for a living — I guess not my entire life, but for a long period of time — and be in these pressure-packed situations to where I’ve learned to deal with it. And not saying that moving forward, I’m not going to have the same result. You always are going to have the opportunity to screw it up. …  I’ve had these pressure moments built up throughout periods of my career, whether that’s micro-sprints, sprint cars, USAC midgets, truck series, late models, and all those moments preparing me for what I’ve been through so far and what’s to come. 

Being from Oklahoma, did you always have NASCAR on your radar? Or when did that really start to come on your radar?

I never, never in my life, did I have NASCAR on my radar. Just growing up from Oklahoma, there literally is no NASCAR. To my knowledge, there’s not another Oklahoma NASCAR guy. So I never thought it was a possibility. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d be in the Cup Series. I always aimed to be a professional racer, and dirt racing was the most logical answer because that’s what we have in Oklahoma, that’s what I grew up doing. And then I got fortunate enough to get paired up with Toyota, racing on the dirt tracks, and they gave me the opportunity to run asphalt.

Christopher Bell on living out his dream as a NASCAR driver

Does that make you any different — either the way you approach things or look at things compared to other people, compared to some of your teammates who probably grew up in NASCAR country and probably had it more on their radar?

I don’t know. If you look at all the successful drivers, they’ve all come from different backgrounds. Some of them are late models, some of them are dirt tracks, some of them are legend cars, bandoleros, it doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is what happens whenever you get here.

One thing that growing up in Oklahoma, and not having NASCAR on my radar, one thing that I think is very beneficial is I learned to love the process. I love the process of driving race cars for a living, and I never in a million years thought I would be a NASCAR driver. I just wanted to be a professional racer. And, fortunately, I made it to the sport’s highest level, but I was just as happy 10 years ago whenever I was racing midgets and sprint cars for a living, and I fell in love with the process of driving race cars for a living.

Joey Logano told me a few weeks ago there’s no fun in the challenge of learning how to go fast, but maybe you enjoy the challenge a little bit?

I love driving race cars.

How would you characterize the season?

Honestly, it’s been disappointing. We’re sitting here and we still have an opportunity of the championship, which is always the end goal. But even if I win the championship, I haven’t performed to the level that I expected of myself and the level that I strive to compete at. We’re one win in so far and I want to be the guy that’s winning multiple races, leading a bunch of laps, and I haven’t been able to accomplish that yet in my career. And that’s what I’m striving to do.

You aren’t going to like this stat: In the past 13 races, you’ve been incident-free in only two. (Note: It increased to 14 races after Talladega.)

I’m well aware of that. That instills confidence in me, honestly, because I know that we’re not competing at what we’re capable of, you know? Thirteen races and two incident-free races? That’s really bad. And we’re still in the hunt. If we can ever get over those races where we have the problems, then I think we can do really good. But certainly, that’s not good. And that’s why I say that the season has been disappointing.

Christopher Bell on being incident-free in only two races recently

Do you feel like a lot of that stuff was just things that happened or do you think you guys put yourselves in position to be in spots where incidents happen? 

I don’t know. You could go back through the races and single out one or the other and determine whether that was a problem of your own doing or not. But whenever there’s 13 of them, certainly there’s a handful that are of your own doing — so if I can do the best job controlling what I can control, then my season will be better off and that’s what I’m focused on.

So this week you roll into Charlotte Motor Speedway. Are you a guy who will go into that place and it will bring back all these great memories. Or is it a year ago, you’re coming out to be battling for a playoff berth and whatever happened last year probably isn’t going to enter your head too much?

Yeah, I’m not concerned about what happened last year at all. Certainly, it’ll put a smile on my face because I have great memories there. But I know that nothing’s guaranteed. And we’re going to have to go out there and fight probably harder than we did last year to win. Nothing’s guaranteed. And I have everything to prove.

What To Watch For

Chaos. Just look at last year’s elimination race. A sign came off a wall and caused a late caution. And then the piece of the curb had to be fixed with just a few laps to go.

All of that happened and Kyle Larson, who needed several laps in the pits for repairs, ended up missing the cut. Chase Briscoe, on fresh tires (and maybe a little help from Cole Custer), used a late run to make the cut.

Adding to the chaos? The new restart zone most likely. Drivers will use the frontstretch chicane on restarts and the restart zone will be the second half of the chicane. It should mean potentially less carnage of drivers trying to make the sharp Turn 1, but whether they navigate the restart in the chicane without issue is to be determined.

Also last year, several playoff drivers stayed out without pitting late in the opening stage in order to earn stage points but ruining their track position for the second stage. That likely will occur again.

As far as drivers who have raced well on road courses this year? There are four road-course winners from 2023 in the race: Tyler Reddick (COTA), Martin Truex Jr. (Sonoma), Michael McDowell (Indianapolis) and William Byron (Watkins Glen). 

Thinking Out Loud

NASCAR put two drafting superspeedways and two road courses in the playoffs for 2024, taking out two of the five intermediate tracks. 

Five intermediate tracks might have been one too many but considering that the playoffs are three-race rounds and the superspeedways and road courses are tracks where more cars tend to stay on the lead lap and therefore a late caution can turn a top-five finish into a bottom-five finish quickly, that might be too much wild card for this playoff system.

With Watkins Glen coming into the playoffs, the Charlotte road course should have been moved to the Charlotte oval, which has put on solid races with the Next Gen car. If NASCAR had to put a new intermediate track in the playoffs to replace Darlington, maybe Nashville would have been the better alternative (although it would have been close to when the IndyCar street race is in Nashville city proper).

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They Said It

“We think it’s important for us to get outside of the United States with our [Cup] series in some way, shape or form. So that’s something we’re going to keep our pulse on as we think about 2025 and beyond.” —NASCAR SVP Ben Kennedy on the potential for a race outside the U.S. 

Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including the past 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass, and sign up for the FOX Sports NASCAR Newsletter with Bob Pockrass.

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