In a day where drivers jockeyed for positions not only on the track, but in the playoff standings, Christopher Bell only had one option — win.
Prior to Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Bank of America ROVAL 400 at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway, Bell found himself in a 45-point hole, 11th on the playoff grid.
With such a substantial gap to the final transfer spot, Bell needed a victory to ensure advancement into the round of eight.
His two races leading up to Charlotte were abysmal.
A crash at Texas Motor Speedway to open the round of 12 put the No. 20 team behind the eight ball, and a mediocre 17th-place finish at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway dug an even deeper hole for Bell and his Joe Gibbs Racing No. 20 team.
However, with their backs against the wall, Bell’s crew chief Adam Stevens gambled in the dire stages of the event Sunday, electing to pit for four tires while everyone in front stayed out.
“We had to do something different than the cars in front of us,” Stevens said. “At the point that we couldn’t restart on the front row, the motivation to stay was pretty small. We needed a win. We had to do the opposite of what those guys were going to do.”
From there, Bell clawed his way from outside the top 10 to second in a lap and a half, before ultimately taking the lead on the ensuing restart.
“Yeah, I mean, definitely the task was simple,” Bell said. “We knew that we had to win. Just tried to put myself in good spots. Road course racing is so-so difficult because you can get stalled out and put in a bad spot and lose multiple positions.
“I was trying to use what I learned throughout the beginning parts of the race where people put me in bad spots and I lost multiple positions, not let that happen to me.
“Yeah, I mean, having a tire advantage that big, it’s a big deal.”
For Bell, it was not only his second win of the season, but his second on a road course (2021, Daytona Road Course).
The 27-year-old admitted he was nervous heading into the round of eight. With the unpredictability Talladega brings, alongside a wildcard with the Charlotte ROVAL, Bell felt concerned.
Those uncertainties and downward moments tested Bell’s resiliency.
“I still felt like we were going to be able to make it through it because we’re really good at Texas and we should be able to get through Texas with a good points day.
“Whenever we left there with a whopping three points, I was just really down, down in the dumps, sad,” Bell said. “Then we went to Talladega and we needed a home run. We needed lot of points and we didn’t score a lot of points. This whole last two weeks, I had been extremely deflated, just kind of down in the dumps.
“Now I can promise you I’m as excited as ever heading into these next three races.”
Bell’s home-run answer in a pressure-cooker moment, has lifted the No. 20 team one giant step closer to the championship four, where he feels the team is primed to make some noise.
“I absolutely think we’re capable of winning really all of them,” Bell said. “Martinsville (Va.), while I don’t expect us to perform as strong as I would at Vegas or Homestead (Fla.), I still think the opportunity to win is there, and certainly much higher possibility to win at Martinsville than the Charlotte road course.
“We’ll just have to go there and execute. The points are really tight, too. I don’t know if it’s going to take a win. I guess it’s dependent on how everyone else performs. I certainly like our chances way more in the Round of eight than I did the round of 12.”
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