Christopher Bell pursued down Joey Logano on the winding Daytona street course Sunday for his first profession Cup triumph and a desired spot in NASCAR’s end of the season games.
Bell won in his second race driving for Joe Gibbs Racing to give the team a couple of surprising victories at Daytona International Speedway. Ty Gibbs, the 18-year-old grandson of group proprietor Joe Gibbs, won the Xfinity Series race Saturday night in his first career national series start.
Ringer’s triumph wasn’t exactly as shocking, however he actually conveyed far sooner than anticipated in his re-visitation of JGR. He was lent to Leavine Family Racing a year ago for his freshman season, however Gibbs pulled him back to JGR this year.
It gave Bell a competitive Toyota however a triumph, this soon, was a major inquire.
“This is one of the highlights of my life,” Bell said. “I’ve prepared my whole life for this moment to race in the Cup Series, last year was such a learning curve for me. I’m very grateful that I got the opportunity to run in Cup and it definitely prepared me to go to Joe Gibbs Racing.”
Bell had a disappointing rookie season driving for Leavine with only seven top-10 completions in Toyotas not exactly as solid as Gibbs’ four-vehicle armada. Presently driving the absolute best vehicles in NASCAR, Bell joined astonishment Daytona 500 champ Michael McDowell with spots in the 16-driver season finisher field.
He needed to pursue down Logano, who had assembled a respectable lead on the field yet couldn’t fight off Bell whenever he’d got him. Logano completed second; a week ago he and partner Brad Keselowski crashed each other racing for the Daytona 500 win.
“I hate being that close,” Logano said.
Denny Hamlin was third to give Gibbs two vehicles in the best three. Kurt Busch completed fourth and Keselowski ended up fifth for a respectable Team Penske rebound.
Chase Elliott again had the most predominant vehicle yet his dash of four sequential triumphs in focuses paying street races was snapped. He drove a race-high 45 laps and was out front when alert for downpour 15 laps from the completion constrained Hendrick Motorsports to settle on an finished 21st.
Elliott exchanged track position for new tires, pitted from the lead and tumbled to fifteenth. He moved gradually up to fifth however spun when he ran into the rear of Kurt Busch. Elliott completed 21st.
“Cautions like that kind of makes for a mixed bag, who stays and who goes, it’s a bit of a gamble,” Elliott said. “I thought tires was the right move. But you get back into traffic and it just gets to be so chaotic and just depending on who who gets through (traffic) and who doesn’t and it determines how it shakes out.”