Christopher Bell sweeps the weekend, wins USA Today 301 at New Hampshire in overtime
Six hours later folks and Christopher Bell has won the USA Today 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway for his third win this season. The NASCAR Cup Series put on a show, although it had issues.
Christopher Bell joins Denny Hamlin, William Byron, and Kyle Larson as the only drivers with three victories on the season. New Hampshire is his favorite track, and now he has the weekend sweep to his name.
This race took a while to get there. There were twists and turns and interruptions throughout. But in the end, it’s all about this 20 team.
This was the biggest test of the wet weather tires. New Hampshire Motor Speedway is the fastest track the tires have been used on. Over the course of 305 laps, it was all about Bell.
Christopher Bell does his thing in New Hampshire
While Chase Elliott started out on the pole, Christopher Bell would run him down after 41 laps on the track. Stage 1 was completely green with no caution flags. Of course, that would not be the case late in this race.
Bell took the lead and showed why he is considered the best driver at this track in the last few years. He has a knack for finding the grip on the track where others aren’t able to.
Joe Gibbs Racing put up a strong effort overall. Both Denny Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr. were fast early on in the race. The threat of rain was always lurking.
Things heat up in Stage 2
New Hampshire doesn’t provide the most thrilling racing all of the time. Then there are races where chaos breaks out and changes that entire narrative. Stage 2 was much like Stage 1. A lot of green flag laps.
However, we started to see how the end of this race would play out in this stage. A little bit of this and that. Drivers finally started to lose grip on the race track. That created cautions.
Then it was all about the weather. Rain was coming and creeping closer and closer. Everyone was racing against the weather and ultimately, daylight. Denny Hamlin took the win in the second stage, though.
No one could have predicted how this race would end.
Bell victorious, NASCAR has to trust teams more
Now that we have seen the wet weather tires on multiple occasions, road courses and ovals, we need NASCAR to put their faith in the teams. Weather came in and delayed the race for more than an hour. Things were pushed back as NASCAR waited it out and dried the track.
It was great that NASCAR waited. It was awesome that they wanted to use the wet-weather tires. Now, let’s just fix one thing – let the teams decide. F1, IndyCar, IMSA, and a number of other series around the world let teams decide.
Pit crews are staffed with real-deal athletes now. Crew chiefs are smarter than ever. Now put it into their hands and let them figure it out.
Other than that, the wet weather tires all the way to the end of the race were fun. Drivers were finding unique and interesting grooves, diving for puddles to cool off tires. If only they were allowed to pit when they felt like they needed it or if they could have swapped to slicks.
Christopher Bell wins a weird one at New Hampshire. A clean sweep of the weekend for Bell between the Xfinity and Cup Series.