Under Christopher Bell’s nice guy smile is one of the greatest threats on the NASCAR Cup Series field. He won three races in the 2024 regular season and now heads to the playoffs with his sights fixed on the championship title. Bell has been known for being a calm individual who handles the pressure that comes with racing extremely well. Who would’ve guessed even he gets the nerves at times?
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He admitted to the million emotions of anxiety he felt before every race in a recent interview with Andrew Kurland but had a strong positive to take out of them. “Nerves are good,” he said. “I get nervous before every race and that means I want it, right?” An early mentor of Bell had instilled this idea in him that feeling nervous before important races reflected nothing but the desire to perform.
Bell lives by that code to this day. He added how NASCAR does a great job at creating hype during the pre-race ceremonies. With photos being clicked, drivers being interviewed, and fans celebrating their hearts out, it is easy for one to get overwhelmed by the largeness of everything. But for him, all the noise dies down the moment he is in the seat of his No. 20 Toyota Camry XSE.
He said, “That moment that you get strapped in. That’s whenever it settles down, it’s like, ‘All right. Time to go to work.” It is with this focus that he has secured 27 playoff points heading to the first race of the postseason in Atlanta. But one cannot help but wonder if the extreme number of DNFs that he possesses (6) this season is attributable to his nervousness.
Bell emerges as a big winner out of the Darlington weekend
The 29-year-old made his second Xfinity Series start of the season on Saturday. He ended up defending a charge from Cole Custer to win the event and began the weekend on a positive foot. The Southern 500 had smaller implications for him as far as qualifying for the playoffs went.
Nevertheless, he finished in third place and sent out a strong warning of what was to come in the playoffs. His Xfinity Series victory was the 19th of his career and put him ahead of Denny Hamlin and Joey Logano in the all-time Joe Gibbs Racing Xfinity wins list.
Bell will now head to Atlanta to kick off his bid for the championship. He reached as far as the Championship 4 in 2023 but failed to perform in Phoenix. He gets another shot at glory this time. And he most certainly won’t repeat his mistake.
