July 3, 2021 | By Lee Spencer

Christopher Bell hopes experience pays off at Road America

PLYMOUTH, Wis.--In winning the second NASCAR Cup race of the 2021 season, Christopher Bell made his transition to Joe Gibbs Racing look easy.

Then reality set in. Seventeen races—and just one additional top-five finish later—the 26-year-old racer is still searching for consistency.

Maybe this weekend’s Jockey Made in America 250 at Elkhart Lake could be the catalyst to jumpstart the No. 20 team’s run into the Playoffs.

“We are just trying to get more consistent,” Bell said. “Week-in and week-out, we are very, very inconsistent at the moment, and we need to get to where we are competitive week-in and week-out. Over the last, it seems like, 10 to 12 races, it’s been really trying. At the beginning of the year, we started off really strong and had great cars week-in and week-out.

“So just trying to get more consistent and, thankfully, I think the Playoff schedule is going to look pretty good for us. The tracks in the Playoffs we’ve run well this year, so I’m looking forward to that, but it’s been really disappointing how inconsistent we’ve been, and that’s our focus right now.”

Bell’s introduction to Cup with Leavine Family Racing was far from ideal, through no fault of his own. Team owner Bob Leavine elected to shutter his team when the Next Gen project was delayed due to the pandemic. The economics simply made no sense. Unfortunately, the situation created a lot of uncertainty for Bell.

“That was very, very different, especially with the team shutting down and all of the mechanics not knowing really what was going on, and my crew chief announcement (for 2021) hadn’t been done yet, so I didn’t know if I was going to be driving with Jason (Ratcliff) again or someone else, so it was tough.

“The end of the line is right there. They know that after Phoenix that it’s over. I was really worried about the motivation of the mechanics and the team to see how they would continue on throughout the course of the season, knowing that they are essentially getting fired or let go no matter what happens and what the outcome is, but I was really, really proud of everyone on that 95 car last year. If you look back at it, Texas, which I think was either the second or third race to the end, was probably our best race all year and then Martinsville at the end of the year, we had a good showing.

“We had really good race cars at the end of the year too. I was really proud of the group for keeping digging and not letting the end, so to speak, be part of their motivation.”

But even with an organization of JGR’s stature, Bell is just four positions higher in the point standings than he was at the end of the 2020 season with Leavine. In Bell’s defense, today’s rookies don’t have the luxury of newcomers in the past with practice—let alone testing—at tracks where they haven’t raced in the past. And once again, he had to start over with a new team and a new crew chief in Adam Stevens.

“You are always learning,” Bell said. “I don’t think I’m where I need to be as a driver yet, but yeah, I think it’s a combination of me getting connected with Adam and Adam understanding my feedback. We’ve had a couple good races over the last couple of weeks. I know Texas and Nashville, where we didn’t start off very good and we actually improved the car and made the car better for the end of the race. That’s probably the two only times that we’ve done that this year, and Pocono, too. From Pocono 1 to Pocono 2, we made our car tremendously better and got more competitive.

“That’s a good sign. Just hopefully, we can start hitting it a little bit better off the truck and being more competitive. At Nashville, we didn’t hit the setup off of the truck and, fortunately, we had practice to learn that, but a number of these racetracks across the year—if you are bad off of the truck, then there is nothing to do. You can’t work on it or anything. It’s been tough, but hopefully, we can start being more consistent with that and being closer when you get off the truck because if you are close, you can dial it in. If you are in left field, then it’s a lost cause.”

This weekend at Road America, Bell will have ample track time between the practice afforded the drivers and the opportunity to run the Trans Am Series’ TA-2 support race at the 4.048-mile road course. In addition, Bell brings the confidence of having won an Xfinity Series race at the iconic Wisconsin track in 2019.

“I’m excited about it, and I just love going to new racetracks so being able to add a track to the Cup schedule, I think is really cool,” Bell said. “Road America is a great venue. It’s always put on really good Xfinity races, so I’m expecting the Cup race to be great as well.”