Christopher Bell adds more dirt races to schedule, making High Limit Racing debut

It is a good day to be a 410 Sprint Car racing fan! NASCAR star Christopher Bell has added more races to his schedule, including a debut. Bell is set to race for the first time in Kyle Larson and Brad Sweet’s High Limit Racing series.

Christopher Bell is going to suit up for Kreitz Racing for Don Kreitz. A dangerous team and driver combination, Bell will be one to watch when he suits up at Texas Motor Speedway and Rocket Raceway Park next week.

The Thursday and Friday before the Cup Series races at Texas Motor Speedway, Bell will be slinging dirt. High Limit Racing will be at TMS on May 1. Then, Bell will race with POWRi Elite Outlaw 410 Sprint Car Series.

Christopher Bell isn’t letting Kyle Larson be the only multifaceted driver in the Cup Series. If we could get a Bell-Larson matchup in the High Limit feature, that would be even better.

If you are thinking that Bell already made his High Limit debut, you aren’t technically wrong. He was set to race at Las Vegas weeks ago when the Cup Series and High Limit shared a weekend in Sin City. Well, rain of all things pushed the race from Thursday to Friday and Bell had other obligations.

So, Christopher Bell is set to get back on the dirt. A Tulsa Shootout win this season, two World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series wins in four races, and he has looked like he never left the 410 Sprint Car.

The race track, stock cars and sprint cars, have been pretty kind to Bell. Three Cup Series wins this season, all in a row, and Bell looks like a championship threat. He needs to get back to running up front in his Cup car, and I bet some laps on dirt will help give him that extra edge.

Does dirt racing make Christopher Bell better in NASCAR?

While we will likely never be able to quantify it, what do drivers like Christopher Bell and Kyle Larson get from racing more than their peers? You can throw in Kyle Busch, to a certain degree, into that group, too.

If sprint car racing does help drivers like Bell and Larson, what about guys like William Byron and Denny Hamlin? They hardly race outside of NASCAR at all. Byron might do the occasional late model race here and there, but Hamlin is strictly NASCAR racing. You could chalk up Hamlin’s prowess to his two decades of winning in the sport.

But there is something about Bell and Larson and how they approach racing when they are doing the extra stuff during the week. There is no simulator that can truly recreate the intensity of a real race. Whether that’s 40 laps on a quarter-mile dirt track in a sprint car or 400 miles on pavement in a stock car. Heart rate is a major factor, as are adrenaline and reaction time – all of those little things.

Kyle Larson was busy testing, and wrecking for the first time, in his IndyCar at IMS this week. I’m not sure that is going to help much with his NASCAR duties at Talladega. But let’s see how he and Christopher Bell stack up at Texas after getting sprint car reps in the days leading up to the race.