‘This is my best chance to win’ NASCAR title

There is no shortage of good vibes surrounding Christopher Bell as the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing team embarks on their latest pursuit of the NASCAR Cup Series championship but there is an obvious ‘question mark’ too.

They won three times over the course of the regular season and enter the chase for the championship as the No. 5 seed. However, those wins came in the second, third and fourth races of the season consecutively and no more since.

In the months since, there has been mostly a lot of consistency and generally race contending speed but Bell actually recently asked crew chief Adam Stevens if they had anything to worry about approaching the playoffs.

“I’ve actually asked Adam that because I got a little bit concerned about it a couple weeks ago,” said Bell during the Playoff Media Day event in Uptown Charlotte. “He said, ‘look, we are not doing anything different than when we won three races in a row earlier in the season.’

“We have a great team; a great process and we’re going to keep after it and have some great racetracks for us. I think we have all the tools we need to go out there, execute and win races, and hopefully we can do that.”

Bell reached the final four in the first two years the Cup Series raced on the NextGen platform and had seemingly made it three consecutive until NASCAR penalized him for what it felt was an illegal wall ride maneuver.

He conceded that ‘everything fell our way’ during that three-week stretch at Atlanta, Circuit of the Americas and Phoenix. Bell cited that Atlanta is a drafting track and only led one lap and that he only led eight laps in Austin.

“It went our way and we were able to capitalize on it,” Bell said. “…It comes and goes in this sport, and it’s been tough sledding here through the summer months, but I’m excited for what comes ahead of us.”

To wit, Stevens has Bell believing that they are just as capable of making a similar run over the next 10 weeks too.

“Absolutely,” Bell said. “Any week. Any week. It could happen. It could happen this week at Darlington. It could happen any week.”

And the playoff schedule this year especially makes him feel confident.

“We’ve been really close at Darlington but haven’t won yet,” Bell said. “The playoffs are littered with tracks like that — Darlington, Kansas, Vegas and Gateway. All these places where we’ve been super strong but just haven’t won. It could happen this week and it could happen next week.”

Bell also says he feels like this is his best chance to win a championship yet having finished second at Martinsville in the spring and winning the most recent race at Phoenix.

“This year is my best year for a championship,” Bell said. “I know that. Adam knows that. I’m ready to take it to him.”