For the third time in the last four NASCAR Cup seasons, Christopher Bell has three wins. But with 13 more races still to go in this year’s Cup campaign, Bell has a good likelihood have improving on his wins total and setting a new personal single-season best.
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Bell’s winning proficiency potentially can be credited to the Next Generation/Gen 7 car that began racing in the Cup Series in 2022. After just one Cup win pre-Gen 7, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver has 11 visits to victory lane since the Gen 7’s introduction.
But the Norman, Oklahoma native was somewhat brought back to reality Friday during the Mission 176 at The Glen Craftsman Truck Series race on the Watkins Glen International road course.
Bell was substituting for Stewart Friesen in the No. 62 Halmar Friesen Racing Toyota Tundra. Friesen was seriously injured in a non-NASCAR racing accident in Canada on July 28 and will miss the remainder of the season.
Once he got behind the wheel of Friesen’s truck, Bell immediately learned the stark differences between driving a Cup car and a Truck. He practically considers himself lucky to have finished fourth in his relief stint.
“It certainly has different tendencies than a Cup car,” Bell said of driving a truck to Frontstretch.com. “It took me a bit of practice to get acclimated, mainly the brakes. The brakes were the biggest thing, just figuring out the aero drag in the truck and the braking capabilities.
“So if you lift off the throttle and it slows down pretty quick, and it took me a minute to realize what was brake pedal and what was aero drag. The Cup cars have real good stopping potential and don’t have as much drag as these things do. Once I got acclimated to the brake pedal, I was able to dial it or feel the truck better and felt like it was really strong.”
Bell Had A Great Qualifying Effort
Bell started off real strong, as well, qualifying on the outside pole next to eventual race winner Corey Heim. Bell’s team encouraged him to put a fender to Heim if necessary, but Bell decided to take the gentleman’s way out.
“Happy to give them a good run and get a good finish out of it,” Bell told Frontstretch.com. “They told me at one time, ‘Checkers or wreckers,’ and I’m like, ‘Well, I wanna make sure I get it to the checkered flag’. And we walked out of here with a fourth-place finish after all the chaos. Didn’t tear up the truck too bad, which was nice.”
Friday’s race was a one-off for Bell. Filling in for Friesen for the remaining eight races of the Truck season will be Kayden Honeycutt, who was surprisingly cut from Niece Motorsports earlier this week, even though he’s eighth in the Truck standings (he dropped two places in the rankings because he didn’t compete in Friday’s race).
“I had a ton of fun, but I’m sure it looked weird having that 52 truck out there and without Stewart in it,” Bell said. “I’m just happy to give them a good run and get a good finish out of it.”
