Christopher Bell admitted that he felt like he threw away his best chance of repeating last year’s Championship 4 performance away by finishing runner-up in last Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. After all, despite a walkoff win last year at Martinsville, it’s not like statistically the .526-mile Virginia short track nor this weekend’s race at the Homestead-Miami Speedway were necessarily strong places for him.

Coming into Sunday’s 4EVER 400, Bell had led 4 combined laps on the 1.5-mile South Florida racetrack. Even in 3 Xfinity Series starts, Bell’s best finish was 5th (2019 Xfinity Series race) with results of 36th, 11th, 5th (Xfinity), 8th, 20th, 11th (Cup).

The majority of Sunday’s Round of 8 race looked like more of a Bell struggle. He had just two stage points and was 22nd at the end of the second stage.

Despite that, Bell found himself in the top 5 with 50 to go and passed William Byron for the lead with 16 laps remaining and would never look back en route to his sixth career win.

“I’ve got the best team behind me, honestly I don’t know [how we did it], that race was a whirlwind,’’ Bell said. “I was about ready to throw the towel in during that second stage, I got really frustrated. But [crew chief] Adam Stevens kept after it and gave me what I needed. Whenever we got some clean air this thing was really good.

“I cannot say how proud I am to be here with our partners, driving these Toyota Camrys. Thank you to everyone who supported me. This is better than a dream come true.’’

It’s the 28-year-old Oklahoma native’s second win of the season – sixth of his career – and the first of the season’s eight Playoff races to date.

Ryan Blaney passed Byron late to finish 1.651-seconds behind Bell for his second top 5 finish in the last four Homestead tries.

“We were trying, we just needed laps,” Blaney said after leading 53 laps on Sunday. “The long run car was really good. I just couldn’t fire off for 10 laps or so. I think the track cooling off [during the red flag] helped those guys. I think we were better in the hotter, slicker conditions when “fire off” speed didn’t matter as much and it fell off quicker. That played into our benefit.

“We ran out of laps a little bit,’’ he added. “I am proud of the effort. It was a really good day, we just got beat a little bit there at the end.’’

Tyler Reddick finished where he started in third while Byron and AJ Allmendinger rounded out the top five.

Can Bell Turn This Into A Championship?

I think if you gave Christopher Bell a chance to rank his chances of which track was the best chance for him in the Round of 8 to win at, it would go Las Vegas-Martinsville-Homestead. So, for him to win on the South Florida track on a wild day of action on Sunday, does that turn his championship psyche around?

He was dejected after a runner-up finish last Sunday in Vegas because he felt like he threw away his best chance at making the final round. However, in what was likely a must win scenario over the next two weeks, he welcomed it too. If he was going to accomplish the ultimate goal of the season by winning the championship in Phoenix, he was going to have to win anyways.

So now that he has?

“Yeah, I mean, you’re always more prepared whenever you get into situations for the second time,” said Bell on making it to the final round for the second time of his career. “I feel like we’re going to be better than what we were last year. That was a bad race for us. We were in the Final 4 but we did not have the pace that we needed to compete for that event.

“Then Phoenix one this year, we improved dramatically on it. I would say Phoenix one this year was our best race in the Next Gen era. I have way more confidence going into Phoenix this year than I did last year. Yeah, it’s one race and we just have to go out there and execute.”

The winner of the second race of the Round of 8, has finished either second or third in 3 of the last 4 years and won the title in the other. Is Bell ready for a run at his first championship in two weeks?

He’s heating up in the right moment. Last year, he forced his way in via clutch moments. He came into the Round of 12 elimination race in a must-win situation. He’d reach victory lane to get by to the Round of 8. He came to Martinsville a year ago in another must-win. He do it again.

With a win now on Sunday, has Bell become Mr. Clurch?

“I don’t think that it’s anything. There is no magic in it,” Bell admitted. “Fortunately or unfortunately I’ve been put in a lot of these positions growing up. I think it’s just a credit to me driving professionally for as long as I have.

“You improve on things every time you get into that position. My first walk-off win was Charlotte road course. That was certainly not the first high-pressure event that I’d been in in my career. You learn from it and you get better every time. I just credit it to my racing background and being a professional racer long before I entered into the NASCAR series.

“I certainly thrive on pressure and I love it. I live for those type of moments. That’s why last week hurt so bad because I live for those moments. Whenever you have an opportunity to be great…”

Bell said last week hurt him. He tends to struggle to get over past races that got away. So for him to come from behind the way that they did on Sunday was more of a credit to the team he says.

“To come into the Charlotte road course, I’ve said this a million times, in a must-win situation, whenever we sucked on road courses all year, to have the car capability we had, same thing at Martinsville, now the Round of 8 basically every race is a must win with our points situation,” Bell continued.

“Vegas was amazing. Certainly had a car capable of winning. Then a huge, huge turn of events from stage two to stage three this week to get our car to where I could maintain my track position and win the race.”

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Hamlin, Truex Facing Elimination

Martin Truex Jr. has been here all postseason. The brink of elimination. He’s evaded being knocked out each time thanks to just getting by.

Now, the situation is more dire. He’s 16 points back of the final cut spot to Phoenix. So is teammate Denny Hamlin who’s not been in this situation during this postseason. He won the Round of 16 cut race but was more than good on points entering. He had done enough in the first two races of the next round that all he had to do was get by on the ROVAL. Now, he’s tied with Truex, 16 points arrears with 1 race left.

There’s a scenario to where both can get by but it’s going to take a lot. William Byron is 30 points up the road. They need to catch him then 1 of them win.

For Hamlin, a driver who’s been criticized for not living up to big moments in being 0-for-4 in the Championship 4 and 0-for-5 with a championship in sights for the final race, this is his moment to show that he can score clutch wins and that’s in plural.

“I really do, but I also know sometimes things out of your control can happen,’’ Hamlin said of his title expectations in the last round. “You’ve got to understand that. I say that, so you don’t crash too far down when things don’t go your way and you don’t have the outcome you expect. But certainly based on the speed we show week-in and week-out, absolutely I believe we’re one of the best four teams out there that should compete for a championship at Phoenix.

“But you have to play the game. There’s a lot of work that has to be done between now and then and sometimes things are out of your control. But if they do stay in our control, I believe it’s a year that we would be tough to beat.’’

Sounds prophetic.

In a matter of five minutes during the closing laps, Bell took the race lead and two of his Joe Gibbs Racing teammates also in the Playoffs – Hamlin and regular season champion Truex Jr. – fell out the race with major problems.

Hamlin’s No. 11 JGR Toyota slammed into the Turn 1 wall. And as the field slowed for that caution period, Truex turned down pit road and told the team his car “might be blowing up.’’

As Hamlin sat on pit wall, disappointed and speaking with his crew, Truex turned the engine off and the crew pushed his No. 19 JGR Toyota it into the garage. Both Playoff drivers were done for the day and dropping below the crucial top-four threshold that will advance to the Nov. 5 Championship 4 race in Phoenix. Truex was scored 29th and Hamlin, 30th.

All of it making for an even more intense race at the half-mile Martinsville (Va.) Speedway next week that will formally set the four-driver NASCAR Cup Series championship field.

“We tried and it just didn’t work out,’’ an obviously disappointed Hamlin said.

“It shows you how hard our sport is, that’s two cars and we had been up front,’’ JGR team owner Joe Gibbs said. “It also shows you in sports – particularly in ours with that 20-car (Bell) – it shows never to stop fighting.’’

I don’t think there’s any reason of doubt to say that Hamlin is a for sure First Ballot Hall of Famer in this sport. 51 Cup Series wins in an era that’s growing more and more increasingly difficult to win, he’s still winning in bunches.

He’s won almost all the crown jewels now. He’s a 3-time Daytona 500 champion, as well as reaching victory lane 3 times in the Southern 500 and the Bristol Night Race. He’s also won the All-Star race once and the Coca-Cola 600. The only thing missing is an Indianapolis win and a championship.

Is this truly his year?

His 13 playoff wins rank 3rd best. Just Jimmie Johnson’s 29 trips to victory lane during the postseason and Harvick’s 16 rank higher.

Can he march back to the Championship 4 at Phoenix. He has 4 of them already, which is 4th best. The only ones ahead of him each have 5 (Martin Truex Jr., Joey Logano, Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick).

He’s made 3 Championship 4’s in the last four years. Last year he entered with the least amount of playoff points heading into the playoffs than the other 3 previously and he missed the final round by 1 measly point.

“It’s our year,” Hamlin said after scoring his 51st career NASCAR Cup Series victory in Bristol. “I just feel like we’ve got it all put together. We’ve got the speed every single type of racetrack. Nothing to stop us at this point.”

If this is his year, he has to win Martinsville, a place he’s won 5 times at and led 203 laps including sweeping both stages last year. He’s finished 5th and 4th in his last 2 races there.

But, Truex has won 3 of the last 8 on the same track. While he’s struggling this postseason with just 1 finish better than 17th in the last 9 races, his back is against the wall and needing a win.

Seven times the winner of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoff race at Martinsville Speedway has gone on to win the title that same season – the most of any track on the Playoff schedule. In fact, it occurred just 2020 for the 2nd time in a three year span as well as three times in the last six years. 

Sounds great for the winner Sunday, right? The thing is, in saying the stat above, the Martinsville-Phoenix two-step only moved to the final two races of the year just three years ago. They’re 1-for-3 in producing this feat. Prior to that, in this playoff era that began in 2004, only five times in 17 years did a playoff driver win the final two races of a season and only twice in the seven years of this new format did someone win both the penultimate race as well as the final race to take a championship. 

Translation?

It’s not as likely as it sounds.

Is this a factor of putting all of your eggs in one basket for the current race and not focusing too much ahead to the final race? I mean, you have to look at this in the sole fact of why focus on Homestead in the past or Phoenix this year, early if you aren’t guaranteed to be competing for a championship there? You have to make it to the Championship 4 first. Why spend too much time making race cars and dialing in off the truck setups for the season finale if you’re not going to be racing for a championship there? Why not spend all of your waking hours focusing on how to make your race car good for the upcoming race that weekend in order to just win and guarantee your spot into the final round?

By not knowing that you’ll be a part of the final round until the final race of the round before, you’re really behind the eight ball in catching up to Kyle Larson and Christopher Bell who’ve already stamped their ways in.

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Blaney Capitalizes

Ryan Blaney was facing a must win over the next 2 weeks. He came to Homestead -17 in points and with how those ahead of him have fared on this track, it was likely going to take a win to get by. Or would it?

Blaney was shockingly strong on Sunday in scoring 18 stage points including a stage win in Stage 2 and finishing runner-up. With Martin Truex Jr. and Denny Hamlin having DNF’s and Blaney’s big day, he gained 27 points and enters Martinsville +10.

“We just needed laps,” Blaney said. “The long run car was really good. I just couldn’t fire off for 10 laps or so. I think the track cooling off helped those guys. I think we were better in the hotter, slicker conditions when fire off speed didn’t matter as much and it fell off quicker. That played into our benefit.”

Blaney now has 2 top 3 finishes in his last 4 Homestead starts but if not for a costly error last year, it would be 3 for the last 4.

Can he hold on next week?

Blaney, has seven Top-5s in his last 11 tries on the Virginia paperclip overall. While he was 11th in both races in 2021, he did sweep both stages in the spring race. That’s the good. However, Blaney has been 14th or worse in four of his last six short track starts this season too.

On the season, he’s finished 1st, 12th, 6th, 2nd in the last 4 weeks and after being questioned by Kyle Petty on his stats, he’s in a position to deliver.

If Blaney can get to Phoenix, he was runner-up in each of the last 2 races there. His teammate Joey Logano won this race last year. Blaney has a fighting chance.

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Rare Larson Mistake

One of the more unusual incidents of the entire season – let alone the Playoffs – happened during a green flag pit stop and involved Blaney and Larson – who were running first and second at the time with 53 laps remaining.

As their two cars approached pit road, Blaney slowed significantly, and Larson was still going faster directly behind him. While trying to avoid ramming into the back of Blaney’s Ford, Larson turned his No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevy to the right and went full-on into the sand-filled protective barriers at pit entrance causing them to explode with sand.

It caused enough damage on Larson’s car that he had to take it into the garage and the team retired it. Blaney was able to finish his pit stop and make his way back on track. He reassumed the lead when the rest of the cars pit following a nearly 13-minute red flag period.

“I need to look at data,’’ said an apologetic Larson, who finished 34th despite leading a race best 96 of the 267 laps. “I knew where the yellow line was but on the replay it looked like I missed it by a lot. So I need to look at data. I knew where the yellow line was and I was under control getting there and then he just slowed down, I locked the brakes, clipped him and hit the barrels.

“I’m upset with myself more than anything. Whether he got to pit road speed sooner than the yellow line or not, I could have just done a little better job.

“I hope they’re able to recover and he can get a good finish or the win and get the finish he (Blaney) deserves. Just a bummer. I thought we had a great car today and just made a mistake.’’

Larson was well on his way to a potential second straight win here. He won the first stage and slid back from the lead late in the second stage. He still finished third. He was with Blaney for the win late but made that error.

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Byron In Position To Make Final Round

William Byron netted 16 stage points and finished 4th on Sunday. That has him 30 points above the cutline heading to the Round of 8 elimination race next Sunday. Still, he had a shot to win in the end beating everyone off pit road for the final stop inside of 25 to go. He just didn’t have enough in his No. 24 Chevrolet to hold off Christopher Bell as he went from 1st to 4th in the final laps.

“We just didn’t have the turn in our car to go into a run, so we just struggled there to fire-off,” he said. I was doing all I could to air-block; move my line around and try to take (Christopher Bell’s) air, but it just wasn’t enough. I couldn’t get through the middle well enough to maintain pace. But our No. 24 Liberty University Chevrolet was really solid all day. We just needed more there at the end, but we had good execution, good pit stops and put ourselves in position to win.”

Byron has finished 1st, 2nd, 2nd, 7th, 4th over the last 5 weeks. Really since Watkins Glen, he’s finished 1st, 8th, 4th, 15th, 9th, 1st, 2nd, 2nd, 7th, 4th. That’s 9 top 10’s and 6 top 5’s over the last 10 weeks. In the 10 weeks prior, he had 3 top 10’s and 1 top 5.

Byron also has six Top-8’s in his last eight Martinsville starts including a runner-up in the playoff race in 2019, fourth and fifth respectively in 2021 and a win in the spring race. My only concern is that he finished 23rd this past spring and has finished 21st or worse in four of his last six short track starts on the season too.

On the flipside, he did win Phoenix this past spring too.

NASCAR Cup Series Race – 4EVER 400 Presented by Mobil 1

Homestead-Miami Speedway

Homestead, Florida

Sunday, October 22, 2023

1. (13)  Christopher Bell (P), Toyota, 267.
2. (10)  Ryan Blaney (P), Ford, 267.
3. (3)  Tyler Reddick (P), Toyota, 267.
4. (7)  William Byron (P), Chevrolet, 267.
5. (25)  AJ Allmendinger, Chevrolet, 267.
6. (2)  Bubba Wallace, Toyota, 267.
7. (9)  Ty Gibbs #, Toyota, 267.
8. (36)  Joey Logano, Ford, 267.
9. (30)  Aric Almirola, Ford, 267.
10. (6)  Austin Dillon, Chevrolet, 267.
11. (22)  Kevin Harvick, Ford, 267.
12. (26)  Austin Cindric, Ford, 267.
13. (29)  Ryan Preece, Ford, 267.
14. (19)  Erik Jones, Chevrolet, 267.
15. (16)  Chase Elliott (P), Chevrolet, 267.
16. (14)  Daniel Suarez, Chevrolet, 267.
17. (21)  Chase Briscoe, Ford, 267.
18. (18)  Kyle Busch, Chevrolet, 267.
19. (12)  Alex Bowman, Chevrolet, 267.
20. (20)  Corey LaJoie, Chevrolet, 267.
21. (17)  Chris Buescher (P), Ford, 267.
22. (15)  Michael McDowell, Ford, 267.
23. (27)  Justin Haley, Chevrolet, 267.
24. (33)  Ty Dillon, Chevrolet, 266.
25. (32)  Todd Gilliland, Ford, 266.
26. (34)  Ryan Newman(i), Ford, 265.
27. (23)  Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Chevrolet, 263.
28. (4)  Brad Keselowski, Ford, 262.
29. (1)  Martin Truex Jr. (P), Toyota, Engine, 237.
30. (11)  Denny Hamlin (P), Toyota, Accident, 236.
31. (8)  Ross Chastain, Chevrolet, Accident, 221.
32. (24)  John Hunter Nemechek(i), Chevrolet, Accident, 218.
33. (31)  JJ Yeley(i), Ford, Accident, 218.
34. (5)  Kyle Larson (P), Chevrolet, Accident, 214.
35. (35)  Josh Bilicki(i), Chevrolet, Accident, 201.
36. (28)  Harrison Burton, Ford, Overheating, 165.

Average Speed of Race Winner:  125.221 mph.

Time of Race:  3 Hrs, 11 Mins, 54 Secs. Margin of Victory:  1.651 Seconds.

Caution Flags:  5 for 35 laps.

Lead Changes:  25 among 9 drivers.

Lap Leaders:   M. Truex Jr. (P) 1;B. Wallace 2-10;M. Truex Jr. (P) 11-19;W. Byron (P) 20-32;T. Reddick (P) 33;D. Hamlin (P) 34-40;B. Keselowski 41-53;K. Larson (P) 54-80;B. Keselowski 81;K. Larson (P) 82-114;B. Keselowski 115;D. Hamlin (P) 116-125;K. Larson (P) 126-161;R. Blaney (P) 162-167;B. Keselowski 168;R. Blaney (P) 169-173;W. Byron (P) 174;R. Blaney (P) 175-212;D. Hamlin (P) 213-218;R. Blaney (P) 219-221;D. Hamlin (P) 222-229;C. Bell (P) 230-239;W. Byron (P) 240-242;R. Blaney (P) 243;W. Byron (P) 244-251;C. Bell (P) 252-267.

Leaders Summary (Driver, Times Lead, Laps Led):  Kyle Larson (P) 3 times for 96 laps; Ryan Blaney (P) 5 times for 53 laps; Denny Hamlin (P) 4 times for 31 laps; Christopher Bell (P) 2 times for 26 laps; William Byron (P) 4 times for 25 laps; Brad Keselowski 4 times for 16 laps; Martin Truex Jr. (P) 2 times for 10 laps; Bubba Wallace 1 time for 9 laps; Tyler Reddick (P) 1 time for 1 lap.

Stage #1 Top Ten: 5,6,12,24,19,11,45,3,20,54

Stage #2 Top Ten: 12,24,5,11,6,19,45,54,3,22