Bell Could Exorcise Last Year's Playoff Demons With Las Vegas Win

In 2024, Christopher Bell's quest to reach the NASCAR Cup Series Championship 4 for a third consecutive season hit two frustrating and unexpected snags. Fast forward to 2025, and a win in Sunday's South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway could avenge both snags in one afternoon for the driver of the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota Camry XSE.

But Bell isn't getting caught up mentally in the drama that occurred last season. He's focused on the task at hand, taking care of business in the race that he feels gives him the best shot at scoring a win in the Round of 8 of the Playoffs, and that happens to be Sunday's race at Las Vegas.

"...you know, the last, whatever year since my deal, what I've learned is, you know, winning cures all, and no matter what the format is, winning races is the best thing to do," Bell said during a media availability on Saturday. "So, you know, like last year, I came into this round with a lot of bonus points, kind of separated from the field, and felt like we were not in a must-win position. I didn't win, and I didn't make the final four. This year, my mentality is a lot different in the aspect that we need to win in-race, and this is probably my best opportunity to win in this round. So, we're going to try and make that happen this week.”

For those unfamiliar with what went down with Bell last season in the Round of 8 of the Playoffs, the Oklahoma native had his foot on the throat of the competition in this race a season ago, as he dominated the race from the pole by leading a race-high 155 laps in the 267-lap contest.

Just as it looked like Bell had the race all sewn up, he and crew chief Adam Stevens were snookered by the opportunistic No. 22 Team Penske team on strategy. Joey Logano took the lead as he managed a dwindling fuel load, while the rest of the field cycled through a final round of pit stops, with six laps remaining in the race. Logano, the eventual champion, was able to hold on to defeat Bell for the win by 0.622 seconds to secure his berth in the Championship 4.

Those six laps were the first that Logano had led in the race, and as we all know the most important six laps in any race are the final six.

Bell would follow up the disappointing near-miss for the win at Las Vegas with a solid fourth-place result at Homestead-Miami Speedway to set himself up for what appeared to be a somewhat easy path points-wise to the Championship 4 in the final race of the Round of 8 at Martinsville Speedway. However, in this elimination-style Playoff format, nothing is ever as easy as it seems.

Bell, who started 16th at Martinsville, would be swept up in an early race accident in Turn 2 with Corey LaJoie on Lap 77. This would hamper his No. 20 Toyota, and Bell would struggle mightily the rest of the afternoon.

In the closing laps, Bell found himself within striking distance of gaining just enough points to advance to the Championship 4 over William Byron, but after some race manipulation among the Chevrolet-aligned teammates, the fight for the final Championship 4 spot was a virtual tie. Bell would get into the outside wall in Turn 4 on the final lap, but was able to hang onto his position to seemingly advance to the Championship 4.

However, after a painstaking wait on pit road after the race, NASCAR concluded that Bell rode the outside wall in a similar manner to Ross Chastain's 2022 'Hail Melon' move, which had been banned. As a result, NASCAR penalized Bell four positions, which meant he had missed out on the final spot in the Playoff field by just four points.

Bell was understandably upset in the week following Martinsville as he insisted he didn't intend to ride the outside wall on the final lap, and he felt he had been cheated out of a third consecutive Championship 4 appearance due to race manipulation.

“I feel cheated. I feel cheated out of the chance to compete for a championship,” Bell said in a press conference on the Saturday prior to last season's championship race at Phoenix Raceway. “It all stems from what happened with 15-20 to go, whenever the race got fixed and manipulated by Chevrolet. That forced our hands to do what we did and forced me into a mistake on the last lap to get into the wall, and I feel like I should have never been put in that position, had the race been run fairly.”

While Bell felt cheated, NASCAR investigated the race manipulation accusations and ultimately didn't change the Championship 4 field. The reason is that the sanctioning body didn't make a change to put Bell into the Championship field over Byron is that they determined that the Toyota teams had also engaged in late-race manipulation due to questionable radio communication between Bubba Wallace and his spotter, Freddie Kraft, in the closing laps as Wallace was battling Bell for position.

But what it all boils down to is had Bell simply won at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the opening race of the Round of 8 that he absolutely dominated, the drama that unfolded at Martinsville Speedway, which kept him out of the Championship 4, would have never occurred.

That is what makes Sunday's South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway so crucial for Bell. It is a chance at redemption. A chance to right a perceived wrong that was dished out to him a season ago. And it's a chance for the 30-year-old to head back to Phoenix Raceway with a chance to hoist his first Bill France Cup, the trophy awarded to the NASCAR Cup Series champion.

Bell knows there will be butterflies in the pit of his stomach on Sunday afternoon as he walks down pit road to his race car, which will be sitting in the third position on the starting grid. But he's fully confident that when he cranks up his engine, and blends his race car onto the banking of the 1.5-mile speedway for the pre-race pace laps that the nerves will subside, and he'll get back to doing what he does best.

“All eight of us are going to be super nervous tomorrow whenever we walk out to pre-race and, you do driver intros and do the national anthem and all that stuff. But at least for me, speaking for myself, you know, once you get into that race car, it all goes away, and the only thing that matters is, you know, trying to do your job," Bell explained. "So, yeah, certainly, you know, the pressure's on and you feel it. But I love it. I live for it, and I'd certainly rather be in this position than not be in it. So yeah, it all goes away whenever you're in the race car, but, you know, outside of the race car, you feel [the pressure].”

The South Point 400 is set for Sunday, October 13, and will be televised by USA Network with coverage scheduled to begin at 5:30 PM ET. The Performance Racing Network (PRN) and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio will provide the radio broadcast of the event.

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