Bell wins Ambetter 301 NASCAR Cup Series race at NHMS
Story and photo by: Matthew Wiernasz
LOUDON, NH- Christopher Bell punched his ticket into the NASCAR Playoffs on Sunday afternoon by winning the Ambetter 301 NASCAR Cup Series race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Bell led the final 41 laps after taking the lead from Chase Elliott. It was Bell’s second win in 92 starts. Joe Gibbs Racing has continued its dominating performance at NHMS.
” Simple answer is just the setup. But with that being said, the setups today in the Next-Gen era is unlike anything else, and you can’t even use notes from the last 10, 12 years of the Gen-6 car. In some of these places that we go to like Richmond is another great racetrack for JGR and some of their philosophies or whatever translated and we were good at Richmond with the Next-Gen car, but then you look at the road courses which were racetracks that we were super strong at last year or the last several years with the Gen-6 car and now we’re pretty much out to lunch with Next Gen. Yeah, I really can’t find a rhyme or reason to why we succeed at certain racetracks, but they definitely have their good tracks and bad tracks.” Bell Said
” I think with Martin (Truex), I really felt for him. To have a car like that and with everything that worked out the way it did, yeah, I think for us, we’ve had kind of a really up-and-down year. Everybody kind of knows we’ve been off some for sure. Road racing has given us fits. So it’s hard. New car, everything that’s taken place, you just keep working hard. We’ve got great people. The Lord has blessed us with great people, and we just keep working hard. So hopefully we’re getting a handle on things, and hopefully able to show up.” JGR President Joe Gibbs Said
Chase Elliott finished the race in second.
Just do a better job again, same conversation as Road America, unfortunately. I felt like just a poor run of execution on my end throughout that last run. I feel like it took me a while to get past Joey and the 45 (Kurt Busch) and had to run a little harder than I wanted to and then got in front of those guys and just made a couple mistakes and couldn’t get much breathing room.” Elliott Said
“Christopher did a good job. Congrats to those guys. I know they’ve stayed close to winning, so that’s cool. But obviously for us, we were in a position where guys at this level really should close out a race if you’ve got the lead like that. Just poor effort on my part.”
Bubba Wallace finished the race in third.
“Yeah, I’m just proud of the team, proud of myself, proud of everybody at the shop. They brought a — I’m going to give them a “decent” DraftKings Toyota Camry TRD. It didn’t handle that great but it had speed, so we knew that. Just the mental preparation, had to set yourself up for a long day, and we did.” Wallace Said
“We had no idea what we were running there at the end. I knew it was inside the top five. But just tire management there at the end and we were able to capitalize. Just proud of everybody. Happy. It’s been hell for me the last month, so good to come out with a top five.”
Martin Truex, Jr had another dominating performance at NHMS by winning Stages 1 and 2 but came up short. Truex, Jr took two tires on his final pit stop of the race. He led the most laps in the event and would end up finishing in fourth.
“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.” Truex, Jr said
“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.”
There were nine cautions for 52 laps.
Kevin Harvick rounded out the top five. Sixth through tenth were Denny Hamlin, Brad Keselowski, Ross Chastain, Daniel Suarez, and Kurt Busch.
The NASCAR Cup Series will make a return to the Magic Mile in 2023 as the Crayon 301 will take place. The date for the race will be announced at a later time.
The NASCAR Cup Series heads to Pocono Raceway next Sunday.