Christopher Bell and Kyle Busch are at different points on the NASCAR career spectrum. Bell is striving to secure his maiden Cup Series championship, while Busch, 40, is approaching the final years of his career. Still, their paths have crossed multiple times along the way, and the evolution of their relationship has been particularly interesting.
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Back in 2016 and 2017, Bell was a youngster learning the trade in the Craftsman Truck Series. He drove full-time seasons for Kyle Busch Motorsports and even won the 2017 championship. Busch served as a mentor for him at that time and helped his career a great deal, while progressing his own in the Cup Series.
Years later, in 2020, Bell received a promotion to the Cup Series. He got the chance to drive full-time for Leavine Family Racing, a team that had a close technical alliance with Joe Gibbs Racing, the outfit that Busch drove for. While they were technically teammates at this juncture, Bell’s move to Joe Gibbs Racing in 2021 brought them closer together and put them in direct competition with each other. That’s where everything changed.
Bell said (per Frontstretch), “Essentially, we were kind of teammates last year, while I was over at LFR [Leavine Family Racing], so dealing with Kyle … he’s definitely a lot different now that we’re teammates than he was as a team owner.
“He was cheering for me as a team owner, and now he wants to beat me. But that’s okay. I want to beat him, too.”
Beat him, he did. Bell secured a victory in 2021 and went on to become a strong force in the garage. Busch, on the other hand, moved to Richard Childress Racing and has since been grappling with the challenge of reviving his career as a top driver. Understandably, their relationship deteriorated slightly.
Tensions between them flared in 2024 after an incident at the Circuit of the Americas that saw Busch walk over to Bell and hurl a string of angry words at him.
Kyle Busch finished 9th despite being turned by Christopher Bell in the final Stage of Sunday’s race at COTA, which ran green the whole way. Busch confronted Bell after the race: pic.twitter.com/UhPL5BTqh0
— Toby Christie (@Toby_Christie) March 24, 2024
The prodigy Busch once developed spun him while battling for position during the race after making questionable contact, leaving Busch seething. Fortunately, Bell apologized immediately, preventing the situation from escalating. Now, the two remain challengers on the track.
While Busch’s competitive nature will always push him to want to outperform Bell, he must also feel a measure of pride in having served as a crucial step in Bell’s journey to the top.
