By Adam Carabine
Kyle Busch had a great day, but was thwarted by Christopher Bell with five laps to go. Bell took advantage of a late caution, newer tires, and perhaps even his dirt-racing background to make it two wins in a row.
Much was made of the style of racing at the end. Even Kyle Busch, who wound up finishing 5th, was complimentary of Bell’s clean racing.
“He was much faster than me, and was able to do a good job of biding his time and waiting for me to make a couple mistakes in a row. Once I made two mistakes in a row, then it was over,” Busch said on pit road after the race.
Bell himself was pleased with the way it all played out, saying, “I can’t reiterate enough how amazing it was to have such respectful, clean and hard racing. That was just a beautiful ending to a race.”
The 20 team of Bell didn’t unload the way they wanted to at the start of the weekend. They qualified 19th, and with limited practice, crew chief Adam Stevens talked about how proud he was of his team for rebounding.
“This is really what this team is capable of, going forward. I’ve felt that for a while, and it’s nice to have all of the other pieces of the puzzle – pit stops, the changes, communication – to facilitate that.”
Kyle Busch was one of the cars to beat early on. He qualified 8th, and was a strong contender from the start. Busch earned the most stage points of any driver on the day, with 14. He began battling Shane Van Gisbergen for the lead on lap 25, and that continued en route to him leading 42 laps – more than anyone else as well.
As the laps were winding down, and teams all needed one final pit stop to make it to the end, Bell’s crew chief, Adam Stevens made a gutsy call to keep him out on track for a little longer than the rest of the pack.
It’s common to see the leader peel off, and the rest of the field quickly follows suit, not wanting to be caught on the wrong strategy. However, Stevens explained, “I wasn’t willing to pit too early and have too many more laps to go. I felt like the laps remaining post-stop would have put us in an uncomfortable zone with those rear tires.”
The gamble paid off, and the tires may well have proven to be the deciding factor in the race finish.
A rare late-race caution at a road course played directly into Bell’s lap. When Busch’s teammate Austin Dillon got spun by Denny Hamlin and wound up stuck in a gravel pit, the day’s 4th caution came out (and only the 2nd for cause), tightening up the leaders, and giving the advantage to Bell on newer tires.
Busch did his best to hold him off, but with five laps to go Bell took the lead for the first time, and held onto it until the checkered flag.
In his attempts to keep Bell at bay, a little bit of contact bent Busch’s control arm or toe link, which eventually had him fade back to finish P5 on the day.
Christopher Bell noted that until that point, Busch was hard to pass cleanly, saying, “I was trying my hardest to get position on him. He was attacking his braking zones so hard.”
Busch added, “I thought we were supposed to be able to bang wheels and race these things side-by-side, but not the case.”
Last year, Christopher Bell felt like he let some wins slip away, even when he had the fastest car on the track. This year, he said it was nice to capitalize on race wins, sometimes when they didn’t even have the fastest car – referencing last week’s win at Atlanta.
Crew chief Adam Stevens put it best:
“Last week was probably one we didn’t really have circled […] we were able to put ourselves in position to race for it. When it comes down to a race, I’m going to take Bell every time.”
He also added this to the rest of the field: “This week we certainly did have circled. And I’ll tell you, we have the next two weeks circled as well.”
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