Yahoo Autos Bell and JGR have a Richmond win squarely in sight
Christopher Bell was plenty happy to talk about all things Richmond Raceway for multiple reasons Saturday.
The Joe Gibbs Racing driver attracted a crowd when he entered the media center. Bell was the other player in the highly publicized pit road confrontation at Circuit of The Americas when Kyle Busch marched to his car to give him an earful about their contact on the racetrack. After Busch had earlier visited with the media, sharing his side of their phone conversation earlier this week, Bell knew the questions were coming.
The first two questions were indeed about Busch. The third shifted the conversation to the Virginia short track.
“And we’ve got the first winner that’s a non-Kyle question,” Bell quipped.
The change in topic had Bell eager to talk about something else, and do so with a smile on his face and enthusiasm in his voice. Richmond is a place Bell loves to compete at twice a year, and the betting favorites for Sunday night’s Toyota Owners 400 are Joe Gibbs Racing drivers.
“I just like driving for JGR here,” Bell said. “Their resume speaks for itself and the cars are super, super fast. This is arguably JGR’s best racetrack, so I just love going to racetracks where I know I’m going to have a shot at it.”
Of the active tracks on the Cup Series schedule, Joe Gibbs Racing has been the most successful at Richmond. Gibbs has won nine of the last 16 races in Virginia, and the 18 total they have celebrated through the years are the most for the organization at any racetrack.
“It feels like this is JGR’s playhouse,” Bell said.
Although Bell has not contributed to those Cup Series victories, he does have an average finish of 7.7 at Richmond Raceway in seven starts. In a five-race stretch between 2021 and 2023, Bell finished no worse than sixth at Richmond with a runner-up effort in the summer of 2022. He’s led 99 laps at the track.
Sunday is an opportunity for Bell and the No. 20 team. With one check mark already notched in the win column, the hunt is on for more and the valuable playoff points that come with the accomplishment. Bell and his group aren’t tracking how the competition stacks up with playoff points, but he knows how many he has and that the long runway ahead offers more.
The long season and its many points available also means trying to keep up the same pace, and Bell doesn’t want to look too far ahead lest he veer off the right path. The good news is that Bell is driving cars right now that he described as the strongest he’s ever had in his Cup Series career.
“For me, I just focus on the task at hand,” he said. “I try not to look at the big picture and just focus on what’s coming up this week, and this week we’ve got a great racetrack for myself at Richmond and a great racetrack for our team, and a place that should suit our new car. With all those combined, you need to make the most of it.
“Whenever we go to another place in the future that might not be [our] place, the mentality’s going to be a little bit different. Definitely, here at Richmond, we have winning circled, and that’s what we want to do … whenever we think we have everything lined up to do it.”
