HOMESTEAD, Fla. — In a sport that its athletes are hidden from fans inside their cars, it still was easy to see the emotional roller-coaster Christopher Bell went through the past week.
It started the previous weekend when Bell finished second to Kyle Larson at Las Vegas and lamented his chance at the “golden ticket” to the championship race. His emotional ride continued Sunday at Homestead when a frustrated Bell snapped at crew chief Adam Stevens on the radio in the middle of the race before he celebrated a surprising win.
Bell’s Homestead victory — the sixth of his Cup career — ranks as among his unlikeliest. It might be No. 1, but who really expected a dirt car ace to score his first Cup win on a road course as he did in 2021 at Daytona? Bell chased Joey Logano down with fresher tires and passed him with two laps to go for that victory.
Before Bell could rejoice at Homestead, he had to move past Las Vegas. He pursued Larson in the waning moments but couldn’t get by on the final lap. Bell pondered what more he could have done.
With little time between races, drivers often say that they have to forget about the heartbreak or even the celebration the day after and focus on the next event. While Bell prepared for Homestead, it wasn’t easy leaving Las Vegas in his personal rearview.
“I always am thinking of races in the past,” Bell said Sunday night. “I don’t have a light switch, right? I’m not just going to light switch off and on to the next week.
“But fortunately whenever I get in the moment, whenever I get in the car for practice or qualifying, I think that’s whenever I’m, like, focusing on the task at hand.”
Bell entered Homestead two points below the cutline. He qualified 13th — only Chris Buescher qualified worse among the playoff drivers.
Bell moved to ninth by the end of the first stage before his race seemingly slipped away. The car’s handling worsened and Bell lost positions. At one point Stevens told him to fight hard to stay on the lead lap.
Bell responded sarcastically: “OK, I’ll start trying.”
“That was me boiling over with frustration,” Bell later said. “I try not to do that. I try to keep my temper as controlled as I could. But in that moment, I did smart off to him. I apologized to Adam for that.”
Stevens didn’t mind.
“Sometimes he lets a little bit of emotion come out,” said Stevens, a two-time Cup champion crew chief. “Sometimes you need it. I scream my full head off on the (pit) box sometimes, don’t key the mic. You got to let it out.
“He was in a bad spot. We put him in a bad spot. He was driving his pants off. I was just trying to give him information as to where the leader was so he doesn’t lose sight of it. I didn’t want (the leader) to be on our bumper and him be surprised by it.
“Sometimes you got to tell them things they don’t want to hear, and sometimes they’re going to tell you things maybe you don’t want to hear. Part of it.”
Bell remained on the lead lap and finished the seconds stage 22nd.
“I can’t even say I was thinking of a win at any point in the day except maybe the last 10 laps,” he said.
“But it was just insane the difference that the car was. So even from stage one to stage two, it’s no secret that this is not my favorite racetrack in the world. I’ve had my fair share of struggles here. But stage one, we took off, and I was able to advance and move forward.
“I started in the teens and I was able to drive into the top 10 to get stage points. There were a couple other guys coming back to me. Okay, I feel really good. I felt like we were a small adjustment away from being really competitive. Then, geez, it just completely fell apart in the second stage.”
Then it got better. What turned his day around?
“A couple good adjustments and a big, big break with the yellow flag, for sure,” Bell said of the caution for Larson hitting the sand barrels at pit entrance. “If that yellow flag doesn’t happen, I certainly don’t win, and I probably don’t even sniff the top 10. We did catch a huge break in the third stage.”
Still, Bell had to take the lead. That’s something he’s excelled at late in races. Sunday, he passed William Byron with 16 laps to go.
Bell won his first Xfinity race six years ago that way, using a slide job to get in front of then-teammate Erik Jones with four laps to go.
Along with that Daytona road course win, Bell rallied late to win last year’s playoff race at the Charlotte Roval by taking the lead from Kevin Harvick with two laps to go. He followed that by passing Chase Briscoe for the lead with five laps left to win the Martinsville playoff race and reach the championship race.
Those late rallies lead to the question that with Harvick, who is known as ‘The Closer’ for his late wins retiring after this season, is Bell taking that title?
“Harvick is obviously one of the greatest to ever do it,” Bell said. “I’m a far stretch from that.
“I am proud of what I’ve been able to accomplish I guess is the right way to say it. But I don’t think that anybody will be The Closer. That’s Kevin’s motto, that’s what he did. Hopefully I’m Christopher Bell.”
Soon it could be Cup champion Christopher Bell.
