When Christopher Bell won last year’s spring race at Bristol Motor Speedway, he was elated to be the first true “dirt driver” to win on the red clay trucked in to cover the traditional concrete surface.
The dirt is gone this year, and as a result, Bell says he won’t feel like a defending winner in Sunday’s Food City 500 (3:30 p.m. ET on FOX, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
“I don’t feel like the defending race winner,” Bell said Saturday during a question-and-answer session with reporters at Bristol. “It feels like we are at a different venue right now, compared to what it was 12 months ago.
“It is cool that I won the last dirt race. I take pride in that because I’m a dirt-track racer. That’s what I grew up doing, but it definitely, definitely feels like a new venue. When you came here for the dirt race, it didn’t feel like you were at Bristol.”
The winner last Sunday at Phoenix, Bell perhaps is sanguine about his chances on the .533-mile concrete track because of his previous two finishes in the Bristol Night Race.
The driver of the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota was fourth on the concrete in 2022. Last year he started from the pole and finished third on the way to his second straight appearance in the Championship 4 race at Phoenix.
“It’s certainly been a while since we’ve had a daytime race at Bristol, and I think it will probably be a little bit different, but no one knows how different it will be with the Next Gen car,” Bell said.
“Our team, at least, just found out that the treatment (traction compound) at the bottom is a little bit different (from) last year, so, yeah, it is going to be a little bit different than we’ve had the last couple of years in Spring Bristol for sure. I can promise you that.”
He will roll off 12th Sunday.
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