Christopher Bell was furious, and Christopher Bell normally doesn’t get furious. But here he was, at the end of the Enjoy Illinois 300 at World Wide Technology Raceway just outside St. Louis, and he had finished seventh. And Bell doesn’t like to finish seventh.
Maybe nothing would have happened if his crew chief, Adam Stevens, hadn’t gotten on the team radio about then. After all, Bell has had a very good year.
He ranks third in the Old Guy Sport competition index, which is a better method of determining competitiveness than the NASCAR system because it excludes superspeedway races, which depend on avoiding the big wreck and luck to determine who’s runs in front and who wins.
“That’s what we needed today,” Stevens said of the seventh place finish according to NBC Sports. “Takes the pressure off next week. Good job guys.”
Bell went ballistic. “We just (expletive) ran seventh with the best car on the track,” he said. “Every (expletive) week it’s the same (expletive). We’re the last car to pit road. I’m over it.”
Later, Bell calmed down a bit. But he didn’t back off. “I don’t think it’s about winning races (at the time, before his win at Bristol, he had won three),” he commented.
“Certainly that’s an important part of it,” Bell went on. “But if I was consistently leading laps and in position to win then I never would have been frustrated.
“But the fact of the matter is I haven’t been in position to win races,” Bell emphasized. “I haven’t led laps. It seems my teammates (Denny Hamlin and Chase Briscoe) are leading almost every lap and they’re getting results. It’s less about winning races and more about being in position to do well and we haven’t done that,” Bell remarked according to NBC Sports.
Bell snapped out of his funk by winning last Saturday at Bristol and advancing to the second round of the NASCAR Playoffs along with Hamlin and Briscoe, but he has a point.
In the 22 races, including Bristol, counted by OGS since Bell won three straight to start the season, Bell has led laps under green in just five of them. Hamlin has led green flag laps in 10 and Briscoe in 11.
Using the OGS competition index scoring system, Bell has only 13 points in those five races. Hamlin has 76 and Briscoe 93, which means they have been running up front a lot more than Bell. And if you run up front during the race, you have a much better chance of being up front at the end of the race.
Stevens, who won NASCAR Cup championships with Kyle Busch in 2015 and 2019, understands Bell’s frustration but says it’s part of the sport.
“We’re all big boys trying to do a hard job and we have every tool and every piece of the puzzle to do it,” Stevens commented according to NASCAR’s website. “You just have to go track by track and week by week.
“I don’t think there’s a reoccurring thing here,” Stevens continued, referring to Bell’s inability to lead laps. “We’ve had speed. We’ve suffered in execution here and there.
“But there’s lot of races and lots of tracks on the schedule, so you’ve got to take it all in stride. There’s 37 weekends if you count the All-Star race, and you’re not going to win them all,” Stevens said. “It comes and goes just like anything else in professional sports.”
Bell felt a little better after winning Bristol, which kind of overshadowed the fact that once again, he was not able to lead laps. “This was a total team win,” Bell said after the race according to NASCAR’s website.
“I mean with all the pit stops, if you had one mishap you were going to be in trouble. A lot of good calls went into winning this race,” Bell went on. “Having the right pit strategies, putting tires on at the right time. Adam and the engineers did an amazing job of making the right calls at the right time and it worked out for us this week.”
So, for the moment, all’s well that ends well. At least this week anyway.
PREDICTING THE PLAYOFFS
OGS competition index first four out: Shane van Gisbergen, Josh Berry, Austin Dillon, Austin Cindric. First four out: van Gisbergen, Berry, Dillon, Alex Bowman. OGS record: 3-1, .750. OGS pre-playoff second four out: Tyler Reddick, Joey Logano, Ross Chastain, Bill Elliott.
The Hendrick cars are really struggling right now. Using the OGS competition index as a measuring stick, Over the last 10 races, Kyle Larson has scored 74 points, William Byron 89, Elliott 87 and Bowman 71. Over the same period, JGR’s Denny Hamlin has 172 points, Chase Briscoe 285 (almost as many as all the Hendrick cars put together), Christopher Bell 108 and Ty Gibbs 64.
NASCAR NOTES
Most likely winners at New Hampshire: 1-Hamlin, 2-Bell, 3-Larson. Last year’s winner at New Hampshire: Bell. Top five at New Hampshire last year: 1-Bell, 2-Briscoe, 3-Berry, 4-Larson, 5-Chris Buescher.
Last week’s OGS Bristol picks: 1-Hamlin, 2-Larson, 3-Briscoe. Bristol winner: Bell. OGS season record after 23 races (No Pocono pick) 11-12, .480.
Top 10 in OGS competition index: 1-Hamlin 536 points, 2-Briscoe 453, 3-Bell 377, 4-Larson 375, 5-Blaney 337, 6-Byron 326, 7-van Gisbergen 295, 8-Elliott 179, 9-Bubba Wallace 174, 10-Bowman 158.
Top 10 in OGS competition index on short tracks (tracks most like New Hampshire): 1-Hamlin 211 points, 2-Bell 161, 3-Larson 136, 4-Briscoe 120, 5-Blaney 95, 6-Byron 80, Brad Keselowski 80, 8-Bowman 74, 9-Gibbs 54, 10-Elliott 50.