NASCAR: Bell holds off Byron and Reddick to win COTA Cup Race

Joe Gibbs Toyota driver Christopher Bell made it two NASCAR Cup race wins in row by out dueling William Byron and Tyler Reddick to win the EchoPark Automotive road race at the Circuit of the Americas.

The race was the Cup Series’ fifth at the Lone Star State circuit, but the first on a shorter 2.3-mile configuration — reduced from the full-course Formula 1 3.41-mile layout used in previous events.

Bell held off Byron’s Chevy by 0.433s at the line, and Reddick by 0.578s.

Chase Elliott came home 4th, 5.274s behind Bell.

Kyle Busch rounded out the top-5, 5.943s behind Bell.

On lap 91 of lap 95 was full of action. Bell took the lead from Kyle Busch in Turn 1 and Busch gave him a piece of his mind after the race for . William Byron passed Kyle Busch in Turn 2 for second place. Joey Logano spun from tenth position but continued.

On the same lap Byron challenged Bell for the lead in Turn 15 but was unable to complete the pass. Reddick passed a struggling Kyle Busch for third place.

In the final moments, Bubba Wallace spun from 17th position in Turn 20 but managed to continue.

Winner Quotes – Christopher Bell

“That was almost a deja vu of last year. I had the track position that time. Man, these road course races are just so much fun,” said Bell.

“Whenever Kyle was leading, I was just trying to be so cautious. Obviously we know what happened last year. I didn’t want that to happen. I wanted to pass him clean. He was just doing such a good job at running his race, and he could get off the corners just good enough that I couldn’t get inside of him. But there I started peeking a nose, and he bobbled and allowed me to get out front. Whenever I did, I’m, like, Okay, just don’t beat yourself. Those were about the five or six sloppiest laps I’ve ever run,” add Bell

“Just so happy for these guys right here. They’ve been on me hard about winning with them. Tony, we got another one. Just super proud for everyone on this DeWalt No. 20 team. We didn’t count last week. Last week was a speedway. We didn’t have that one circled. We definitely had this one circled. I’m ready to keep adding to it.”

WILLIAM BYRON: Yeah, it was really close. I felt like the battle between Bell and Kyle was just kind of sitting there waiting for one of them to bobble or slide their tires. Bell got by him. I felt like once he got clear, his car was super loose, and it kind of gave me a couple of shots at him, and I just couldn’t ever get beside him.

We’ve always raced really well together, so I didn’t want to like move Bell blatantly and all that kind of stuff. Just sliding around a ton at the end.

We came a long way this weekend. Really proud of that. We were pretty far off to start and got ourselves obviously raceable and in a position to win.

So just sucks to be so damn close, right? You can be on the bumper of the guy coming to the line, and that sucks. A lot of races ahead, and hopefully we can just keep bringing the speed.

It’s a good start to our road course program. Still a bit of work to do. Thanks to Raptor, Chevrolet, Axalta, Liberty, all of our partners. Been a good start to the year so far.

EchoPark Automotive NASCAR Cup Race Results

# indicates Rookie of the Year contender
* indicates “Open” entry
(i) indicates driver ineligible to score NASCAR Cup Series points