HOMESTEAD, Fla. — Fans have seen Christopher Bell celebrate, but most had not seen him like this.
After crossing the finish line second last weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway — a race he had the best car and his team executed flawlessly — Bell released his frustration.
“You gotta be (expletive) kidding me!” Bell screamed on his radio after Joey Logano stretched his fuel to win and advance to the Championship 4.
Bell, not known for expressing his displeasure with such language, took ownership of his comment Friday at Homestead-Miami Speedway and noted that was how he felt after seeing a win go away.
“I try to not curse, but in the moment it was a very passionate, I don’t know, I was just overcome by emotion at that point in time,” Bell said. “I don’t know what else to say other than I just didn’t even think about what I was saying. It was just emotion and disappointment and, yeah, just passion.”
Logano won by making one less stop in the final stage than Bell and many others. Bell was closing with fresher tires while Logano saved fuel but couldn’t get close enough to make a move. After the race, Bell said the loss
“Everything went literally exactly how we dreamed it up,” Bell said of how his team performed, “and we still lost the race. You’ll have that.
“(Crew chief Adam Stevens) told me when we very first started racing together back in 2021, he said, ‘I can probably count on one hand the amount of times that we won the race with the best car and everything went smoothly. A majority of your wins come from the days you don’t have the best car or other people make mistakes and it falls into your lap.’
“Unfortunately, (Las Vegas) was one of those deals. That’s happened a lot to us this year. You can start rattling off the races, but it’s been a lot of races this year where we have executed and done everything well and didn’t win. That’s why it hurt so bad.”
Bell said it took until Monday night before he got over the finish of the Las Vegas race — which was eighth top-10 finish in the last nine race and fifth in a row.
Bell would seem to be in a good spot to reach his third consecutive Championship 4. He is 42 points above the cutline and enters Sunday’s race (2:30 p.m. ET on NBC) as the defending race winner.
Christopher Bell remains atop NBC Sports NASCAR Power Rankings going to Homestead
Christopher Bell has eight top-10 finishes in the last nine races.
But Bell is cautious about his position with Kyle Larson seven points behind him and William Byron 15 points back.
“The three of us, William, Kyle and myself, the way that the cards fell, we’re essentially point racing each other,” Bell said. “The guys below that, they are far enough below that. They’re basically out of the points and they’re racing for wins.
“Certainly we’ll know more after we get through Homestead on Sunday night, but right now we’re planning on there being three winners and the three of us, William, Kyle and myself are racing for that last point spot.
“There’s a good chance that William, Kyle or myself could win this weekend and it could all change. Plus 42 (to the cutline) sounds great until you realize that every time someone wins, that cut line shrinks more and more and more that gap to the cutline. So, you’re never safe.”
