NASCAR: Bell beats Elliott in Loudon
Christopher Bell won his first NASCAR Cup Series victory of the season with a late surge to the front, shaking up the playoff picture Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
Bell’s No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota bypassed Chase Elliott’s No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet and set the pace for the final 42 of the 301 laps in the Ambetter 301. Bell’s second win of his Cup Series career was his fifth at New Hampshire in national-series competition — three in Xfinity, one in Camping World Trucks, plus Sunday’s triumph in Cup.
Elliott led 13 laps and drove home second, 5.767 seconds back at the checkered flag. Bubba Wallace finished third with pole-starter Martin Truex Jr. fourth and Kevin Harvick claiming the last spot among the top five.
Truex swept the first two stages, leading 160 of the first 185 laps, but his No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota was mired back in traffic after a final-stage pit stop. He led 172 laps total but was bumped to the playoff bubble by Bell, who became the 14th winner this season — crowding the 16-driver postseason picture.
The NASCAR Cup Series’ next race is the M&M’s Fan Appreciation 400, scheduled next Sunday at Pocono Raceway.
Notes: A multicar crash sidelined four drivers with just four laps complete, knocking out Alex Bowman, Ty Dillon, Josh Bilicki and BJ McLeod. … The green flag was delayed roughly 20 minutes by a mid-afternoon shower and lightning in the area.
QUOTES
CHRISTOPHER BELL, No. 20 Rheem/WATTS Toyota Camry TRD, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 1st
What an impressive day for Christopher Bell, Joe Gibbs Racing. He came in saying, yeah, no doubt, one of my better racetracks, and he puts himself into the 2022 playoffs in front of these New Hampshire fans. How about that? Welcome to the playoffs, Christopher.
“Man, that one was much needed right there. I’ll tell you what, that was a hell of a race from my viewpoint. That was so much fun racing with the 45 (Kurt Busch), the 22 (Joey Logano) and the 9 (Chase Elliott). We were all running different lines. That was a blast. Just so happy. So happy to be here at Joe Gibbs Racing, all our partners on this No. 20 car. It’s good to get Rheem back in Victory Lane.”
Coming into this race you knew you were really good at this racetrack; you said “one of my best racetracks.” When you were coming to celebrate, you said, “I can’t believe it.” Why?
“Just looking at all the crowd, and winning Cup races is hard. You guys are awesome, thank you for coming out, but it just seems like we’ve been so close and then we’ve fallen off a little bit last week. I was talking to my best friend, and I told him, earlier in the year I felt like we were right on the verge of winning and then the last couple weeks I felt like we were pretty far away, but here we are today.”
You said you weren’t super stoked about the lobster situation. Are you going to be okay with it if it means you’re in the playoffs?
“I guess I’m going to have to be.”
CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 9 NAPA AUTO PARTS CAMARO ZL1 – Finished 2nd
WHAT MORE DID YOU NEED TO BEAT CHRISTOPHER BELL ON THAT LAST RUN?
“I just need to do a better job again. The same conversation as Road America, unfortunately. I feel like it was a poor run of execution on my end throughout that last run. I feel like it took me awhile to get past Joey (Logano) and the No. 45 (Kurt Busch), and I had to run a little harder than I wanted to. I got in front of those guys, just made a couple of mistakes and couldn’t get much breathing room. Christopher (Bell) did a good job. Congrats to those guys. They’ve been close to winning, so that’s cool.
Obviously for us, we were in a position where guys at this level really should close out a race if you have the lead like that, so just poor effort on my part.”
YOU SAY POOR EXECUTION, BUT THIS IS YOUR FOURTH-STRAIGHT TOP-TWO FINISH IN THE NASCAR CUP SERIES. I’D HAVE TO SAY SOME THINGS ARE GOING RIGHT. YOU’RE PUTTING YOURSELF IN POSITION, RIGHT?
“Yeah, but when you’re in position like we’ve been in, you need to finish them off. The top-two’s don’t tell the whole story. Sometimes you have to step back and look at the reality of it; and the reality is I’ve given away a couple of races just by making too many mistakes. You don’t want to have that, so I’ll try to clean it up for these final events.”
BUBBA WALLACE, No. 23 Draft Kings Toyota Camry TRD, 23XI Racing
Finishing Position: 3rd
How do you feel after a top-three finish at New Hampshire?
“Just proud. Proud of our team, proud of myself. Staying in it there. This last month has been pretty much hell for me. A good day for our Draft Kings Toyota Camry TRD. Definitely needed this. Hats off to everybody back at the shop. Brought a decent car, I wasn’t really happy with it, but it had speed. I told myself this morning that this could be a long day and to prepare for that, but here we are.”
How much did your tires go away at the end of the race?
“It was definitely a tire management game. I kept telling myself to race the race track. Had one of the best behind me for a long time there with (Kevin) Harvick. He can mess with your mind a lot and I said, ‘Get out of here,’ I wasn’t going to let him do that and we pulled away.”
MARTIN TRUEX JR., No. 19 Interstate Batteries Toyota Camry TRD, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 4th
After being so dominant in the first two stages of the race, what happened in the final stage that impacted your race car?
“Just put on two tires and got in a bad spot on the restart. I got put three-wide and the 22 (Joey Logano) didn’t get going and I was on the inside behind him. I tried to shove him to get him going and get us going and (Kevin) Harvick made it three-wide and put us in a bad spot. And just my car was terrible on two tires and couldn’t go anywhere. Just should have put four tires on I guess.
How frustrating is it to miss out on another New Hampshire win?
“We had the car to do it, we just screwed it up. It’s frustrating and disappointing, but congrats to the 20 (Christopher Bell). Obviously, they were smarter than we were at the end.”
Race Results
| POS | CAR | DRIVER | MAKE | BEHIND | LAPS | Led |
| 1 | 20 | Christopher Bell |  |
— | 301 | 42 |
| 2 | 9 | Chase Elliott |  |
5.767 | 301 | 13 |
| 3 | 23 | Bubba Wallace | |
13.377 | 301 | 0 |
| 4 | 19 | Martin Truex Jr. | |
13.646 | 301 | 172 |
| 5 | 4 | Kevin Harvick |  |
15.398 | 301 | 0 |
| 6 | 11 | Denny Hamlin | |
19.040 | 301 | 0 |
| 7 | 6 | Brad Keselowski | |
22.482 | 301 | 0 |
| 8 | 1 | Ross Chastain | |
23.307 | 301 | 0 |
| 9 | 99 | Daniel Suarez | |
23.982 | 301 | 0 |
| 10 | 45 | Kurt Busch | |
24.638 | 301 | 40 |
| 11 | 24 | William Byron | |
26.065 | 301 | 0 |
| 12 | 18 | Kyle Busch | |
27.376 | 301 | 0 |
| 13 | 2 | Austin Cindric # | |
30.329 | 301 | 0 |
| 14 | 5 | Kyle Larson | |
-1 | 300 | 0 |
| 15 | 14 | Chase Briscoe | |
-1 | 300 | 0 |
| 16 | 16 | AJ Allmendinger(i) | |
-1 | 300 | 0 |
| 17 | 17 | Chris Buescher | |
-1 | 300 | 0 |
| 18 | 12 | Ryan Blaney | |
-1 | 300 | 0 |
| 19 | 43 | Erik Jones | |
-1 | 300 | 0 |
| 20 | 31 | Justin Haley | |
-1 | 300 | 0 |
| 21 | 8 | Tyler Reddick | |
-1 | 300 | 0 |
| 22 | 47 | Ricky Stenhouse Jr. | |
-1 | 300 | 0 |
| 23 | 3 | Austin Dillon | |
-1 | 300 | 0 |
| 24 | 22 | Joey Logano | |
-1 | 300 | 25 |
| 25 | 38 | Todd Gilliland # | |
-1 | 300 | 0 |
| 26 | 21 | Harrison Burton # | |
-1 | 300 | 3 |
| 27 | 41 | Cole Custer | |
-1 | 300 | 0 |
| 28 | 34 | Michael McDowell | |
-2 | 299 | 0 |
| 29 | 15 | JJ Yeley(i) | |
-2 | 299 | 0 |
| 30 | 51 | Cody Ware | |
-4 | 297 | 0 |
| 31 | 10 | Aric Almirola | |
-19 | 282 | 0 |
| 32 | 7 | Corey LaJoie | |
-213 | 88 | 0 |
| 33 | 42 | Ty Dillon | |
-296 | 5 | 0 |
| 34 | 77 | Josh Bilicki(i) | |
-296 | 5 | 0 |
| 35 | 48 | Alex Bowman | |
-297 | 4 | 0 |
| 36 | 78 | BJ McLeod(i) | |
-297 | 4 | 0 |
(i) NOT ELIGIBLE FOR POINTS
(*) REQUIRED TO QUALIFY ON TIME