NASCAR News: Bells wins rain-hit Cup race in Loudon

Christopher Bell drove to his third win of the NASCAR Cup Series season, emerging in overtime when Sunday’s event turned into a wet-weather showdown at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

Bell led a race-best 148 of the 305 laps in the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota and was 1.104 seconds ahead at the checkered flag. His second win at the 1.058-mile track also marked the ninth of his Cup Series career and capped a weekend sweep after his Xfinity Series win on Saturday.

Chase Briscoe headed home as the runner-up in the No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford. Briscoe’s teammate Josh Berry took third place, with Kyle Larson fourth and Chris Buescher completing the top five behind race winner Bell.

The race was halted by heavy afternoon rain and lightning at the 219-lap mark, prompting a red flag that lasted two hours and 14 minutes. When the race resumed in the evening hours with Tyler Reddick scored as the leader, it was with the aid of wet-weather Goodyear tires under damp conditions.

A handful of playoff hopefuls found trouble in the course of the event, with Alex Bowman becoming the first retiree with engine woes on his No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet. He ended up last in the 36-car field.

Martin Truex Jr. spun and crashed on Lap 210, shortly after a lengthy pit stop at the Stage 2 break left his No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota mired back in the pack. Chase Elliott and Joey Logano crashed together on a Lap 194 restart, and Kyle Busch’s postseason hopes took another damaging hit after three incidents — a Turn 2 tangle with Noah Gragson in the second stage, a Lap 216 stack-up that sent his No. 8 Richard Childress Racing Chevy spinning again, and finally a single-car crash into the Turn 4 wall under caution on a damp track before the race went back green.

Race Results