Christopher Bell was just a position short of winning a third straight Straight Talk Wireless 500 at Phoenix Raceway. (Photo: Danny Hansen | Nigel Kinrade Photography)
AVONDALE, Ariz. — A dominating performance came up one spot short of a victory for Christopher Bell in the Straight Talk Wireless 500 at Phoenix Raceway.
After leading a race-high 176 of 312 laps and winning the second stage, Bell ran out of laps following two late race restarts to catch Ryan Blaney, having to settle for a runner-up finish.
“Ultimately, if we had more green flag laps, I think we could have made a run at them,” said Bell. “But I don’t know. You win some, you lose some.”
With under 30 laps to go, Bell was driving out to a comfortable lead over Blaney and Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Ty Gibbs when the caution came out for Austin Dillon, who had a tire failure, which led to pit stops.
Following that same caution on Lap 288, the pit road tire decisions shook up the running order of the field, as seven cars decided to take just two tires for the final stint of the race. Bell came off pit road in eighth place as the first car on four tires for the restart.
On the restart, a quick multi-car incident brought out another caution, protecting the seven drivers whose teams chose to take two tires from a green-flag run, which would benefit the four-tire strategy.
Bell once again lined up in the eighth position for the final restart on Lap 301, giving him just 12 laps to work his way back to the lead.
Christopher Bell was the driver to beat in Sunday’s Straight Talk Wireless 500 at Phoenix Raceway. (Photo Matthew T. Thacker | Nigel Kinrade Photography)
He quickly worked his way up to second place by Lap 306, but wasn’t able to make much ground on Blaney until the final few laps of the race, ultimately running out of time as Blaney took the checkered flag.
Despite the runner-up finish and the string of two consecutive spring Phoenix victories being snapped, Bell still found positives in the overall race performance of his No. 20 team.
“This one stings,” Bell said. “But on the positive side, I’m really proud of our entire team. Our pit crew did amazing. Adam (Stevens, crew chief) brought an amazing car. Our engineers and mechanics did really well. It’s something to build on.”
It was a strong day overall for Joe Gibbs Racing, placing three cars inside the top five with Bell in second, Gibbs scoring a third-place finish and Denny Hamlin rounding out the top five. Chase Briscoe was also having a good race, running inside the top five until a tire failure sent him into the wall hard, ending the No. 19 team’s day and finishing in 37th place.
Toyota as a whole continued its good start to the season as well, which is an encouraging sign for Bell and the No. 20 team. Bubba Wallace, Tyler Reddick and Erik Jones all scored strong top 10 finishes.
In total, Bell earned the second-most points of the race with 54, and now sits in sixth place in the NASCAR Cup Series driver standings after entering the Phoenix Raceway weekend in 24th place.
Christopher Bell finally had a race in which the pace and effort nearly resulted a worthy result. (Photo: Danny Hansen | Nigel Kinrade Photography)
The result is also the second consecutive top-five finish for Bell, helping make up for the 35th and 21st place finishes at Daytona International Speedway and EchoPark Speedway in the first two races to begin the season.
“It was a day that we needed,” he said. “We got a lot of stage points and finished second. Just bummed whenever they get away like that.”
Bell will look to keep his top-five streak alive next weekend at a track he’s had success at in the past, Las Vegas Motor Speedway, for the Pennzoil 400 on Sunday, March 15, at 4 p.m. EST on FS1, PRN Radio and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
