Joe Gibbs Racing driver Christopher Bell was a mere five-points behind Larson when he climbed into his No. 20 Toyota last week at Talladega Superspeedway – poised to keep the defending series champ honest and hopeful this may well be the year he hoisted a NASCAR Cup Series trophy.
But a pit road miscue early in the Talladega race put him down a half dozen laps and forced a day of playing catch-up while Larson pulled off an amazing overtime victory passing 11 cars on the final lap for his first ever superspeedway win. Bell finished 35th and now trails Larson by 74 points heading to Sunday’s green flag.
The upside, however, is the way Bell’s team has handled the disappointment and turned it into “no-pressure” motivation for this final two-race run on the season.
“Last week was a trying moment for our team,’’ Bell said Saturday at Martinsville. “I was really happy with how we all came together. It would have been really easy to tear each other down in that moment and none of us did. I was really proud of our group for last week and how we handled it.”
And, he added, “It’s certainly a mentality shift. Where we are at now, we know that the only way forward is to go out here and win two stages and a race and go to Homestead and win two stages and a race. In reality, we have nothing to lose, so now the pressure is off. It’s just a matter of going out there and throwing hail mary’s. We’re to that point now, so that’s what we are going to do
“Just the way we all handled it was remarkable.’’
Bell won the 2022 Fall race here at Martinsville, was a runner-up in the 2025 spring race and has had seventh-place finishes here in the last two races. He’s also a former winner (2023) with four top-11 finishes in six starts at the 1.5-mile Homestead-Miami Speedway, where the series goes to conclude the season next week.
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