Christopher Bell might once have been able to fly under the radar. NASCAR’s own Netflix series described him as a dark horse in his Playoff campaign last season. But for anyone watching this season, there’s no avoiding the driver of the No. 20 car. He’s won the last three races, and Bell has been in victory lane in three of the four official races so far this year.
With three wins in a row, Bell is already breathing rarefied air. If he can make it four on the trot, he’ll be joining a list of just eight other drivers in NASCAR’s modern era with such a long win streak, and he’d be the first driver to do it since Jimmie Johnson in 2007.
But it’s time for a coronation yet since Bell still has to face down Vegas in Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 Presented by Jiffy Lube, airing at 3:30 p.m. ET on FS1, PRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. The 1.5-mile Las Vegas Motor Speedway is the first of many intermediate tracks on this year’s schedule and will provide a gauge for which teams have speed on the backbone of NASCAR’s schedule.
Odds via BetMGM
+400 – Christopher Bell
+400 – Kyle Larson
+600 – Tyler Reddick
+600 – William Byron
+1000 – Denny Hamlin
+1000 – Joey Logano
+1100 – Ryan Blaney
+1400 – Chase Elliott
+1600 – Ross Chastain
+1800 – Kyle Busch
Unfortunately for the other drivers, Bell has shown that he does have plenty of speed at Vegas in the recent past, with three top-five finishes in the last four races at the track, including a second-place finish the last time the series visited.
After his win last week at Phoenix, Bell credited his team for the huge performance out of the gate this season after having not won for 19 races.
“Man, I’m just a small part of it,” he said. “The last couple years, we’ve been close. Everyone on our team could feel this. We could feel this, but it was just like fighting against the current. Just something would not work and take us out of contention. But we were close. It’s not about me. It’s about everybody on our team.”
Bell said that he and the team are prepared to keep the winning streak alive at Vegas.
“I can promise you this: everybody is grinning ear to ear and just trying to ride the wave,” Bell described. “There’s times where it feels like you can’t do anything right. There’s times where you feel like you can’t do anything wrong. We’re on that side of it now.
“I’m just going to keep living, keep living, riding it out as long as we can. We have a great opportunity next week going to Las Vegas. This part of the schedule lines up really good for me.”
But don’t count out his competitors. Joey Logano has won four times at the track, with two of those wins coming in the Next Gen car and one of those being the most recent time the series raced at the track. Kyle Larson has won three times but has the same number of wins in the current car. Both of those drivers clearly know how to get around this track.
But it’s Ross Chastain who has the best average finish at the track since the Next Gen car was introduced (5.5). He may not have won, but he’s finished in the top five four times in the last six races.
“I’ve been really good at Las Vegas in the Cup Series since I started driving for Trackhouse,” Chastain acknowledged. “I hope to continue that trend this weekend.”
The last time the series raced at Vegas, Chastain finished an uncharacteristic seventh. He explained that it was all the result of a mistake which he needs to avoid if he wants to break through for that win.
“We had a really good car there back in the fall until I sped on pit road. That put us behind and we spent the rest of the race trying to catch back up,” he described.
“I’ve been so fortunate that Phil Surgen has given me fast cars and I just need to leave the driver error out of it and get a great result for my team. For whatever reason, Vegas has been one of those tracks where whatever Phil does with the setup, it really suits my driving style there.”
For the rest of the grid, Vegas is a chance to reset. The season began with two superspeedways and a flat track, which don’t represent the majority of the schedule. For new driver-and-team combinations, the next few races are the real first test.
One new pairing to keep an eye on is Josh Berry and the Wood Brothers. The No. 21 car has struggled in recent years, notwithstanding a win by Harrison Burton at Daytona last year, but was driven up to the front at Phoenix by Josh Berry. The team has a technical alliance with Team Penske, and Berry pulled off a performance equal to the Penske cars for much of that race and ultimately finished higher than all of the big team’s cars in fourth compared to Logano in 13th.
Practice will begin at 1:35 p.m. ET on Saturday followed by qualifying at 2:40 p.m. Both sessions will stream on Amazon Prime and will be available on the radio on the Performance Racing Network.
Jesse Love Looks to Maintain Xfinity Series Points Lead
Sophomore driver Jesse Love got off to a roaring start in the Xfinity Series this year with a win in the inaugural race at Daytona International Speedway. Though that remains his only win and only top five, Love has retained the top spot in the standings with four races complete in the year.
Love will be looking to retain that position in Saturday’s The Liuna! at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, airing at 4:30 p.m. ET on CW, PRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. He’ll have to fend off a challenge by Justin Allgaier, the driver who’s second in the standings by just two points.
At Phoenix, Allgaier finished fifth to Love’s ninth in that race. Love’s overall position was helped by Aric Almirola winning over Alex Bowman last week in Phoenix, which meant the top two spots were taken up by drivers who aren’t competing full-time for Xfinity Series points.
The entire Xfinity Series field will have to face down Almirola again. He’ll be making another one of his limited starts this season in the No. 19 car for Joe Gibbs Racing. The former Cup Series driver is a formidable talent, and he proved at Vegas that he’s not afraid to run other drivers hard and engage in some contact for the win.
One other driver who will be tough to beat is Austin Hill. Though he won at Atlanta already this season, he’s had his share of bad luck, running into trouble at Daytona and hitting the inside wall in the turn at Phoenix to get sent up the track, into other cars, and out of the race.
Practice will begin at 6 p.m. ET on Friday followed by qualifying at 7:05 p.m. Both sessions will be broadcast on the CW App.
Rajah Caruth Looking to Back Up Vegas Win
Rajah Caruth scored his huge first-ever Truck Series win last season at Las Vegas Motor Speedways. And Friday night’s Ecosave 200, airing at 9 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, is the first trip back.
When he won last year, he became just the third Black driver to win a race in one of NASCAR’s national series, a huge accomplishment that earned him praise from Bubba Wallace – one of the other two – and figures even outside the sport.
Caruth had a difficult start to the season, collected in wrecks at both Daytona and Atlanta, but that’s not an indication of how Vegas will go. The season opens with two superspeedways, where results are determined as much by what other drivers do than by what you yourself do. Las Vegas Motor Speedway is the first intermediate 1.5-mile track and thus the first real test of speed for this season.
“It’s great to go back to Las Vegas,” Caruth said. “It will be my first time on the grounds since the win. That night was obviously such a milestone for myself, and from a confidence standpoint, I know I can get the job done at that facility.
“Coming off a couple bad weeks, it sticks in your mind when you have multiple weekends between races. My motivation for the weekend is definitely at a heightened level since I know I run well at Vegas. But in terms of preparation, it’s just another race.”
As for the rest of the field, it’s Grant Enfinger who came out the best from the first two races, leading the championship standings. But he sits just one point ahead of Ty Majeski and just six points ahead of Chandler Smith. It’s early days in the season and anything can still happen.
Practice will begin at 3:35 p.m. ET on Friday followed by qualifying at 4:40 p.m. Both sessions will be broadcast on FS1.
- Christopher Bell’s Streak Comes to an End in Bad Day for JGR - March 16, 2025
- Justin Allgaier Holds Off Almirola for First Vegas Win in the Xfinity Series - March 15, 2025
- Bell is No Longer a Dark Horse—He’s the One to Beat - March 13, 2025