CONCORD, N.C. — Christopher Bell finally has a big win to put on his racing resumé, even if it was a little anticlimactic.
Bell won the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway after the race — considered one of the crown jewels for the NASCAR Cup Series — was called due to wet weather with 151 laps remaining late Sunday night. The scheduled 600-miler is annually NASCAR’s longest race with its 400 laps on the 1.5-mile oval at Charlotte, but this year’s event had been red-flagged for more than two hours after a steady downpour, and attempts to dry the track were unsuccessful.
The 29-year-old Bell led a race-high 90 laps in his Joe Gibbs Racing No. 20 Toyota for his eighth career win on the top-tier circuit and his first crown jewel triumph. His five Daytona 500 starts include top-three finishes in the past two editions of the season opener in Florida; his best result from four starts in the Southern 500 at South Carolina’s Darlington Raceway is a fifth-place finish in 2022
“It feels so good … just to have a great race to go off of, a race that we led laps and were able to pass cars,” Bell said. “Hopefully this is something we can build on and get back to being more consistent.”
Bell has been among the top four drivers racing for a Cup Series championship in the season finale the past two years, but he entered Sunday’s race with only one top-10 finish in his past seven starts. His place in the playoffs is all but certain with the victory, which will allow him another run at the title.
NASCAR said that due to inclement weather, high humidity and the likelihood of resuming action after 1 a.m. local time with the track-drying process, the result was declared official. Fans booed loudly after it was announced the race would not continue.
“It was getting booed out of the place,” Bell said with a laugh. “… It seems all of my wins come with an asterisk.”
Bell’s crew chief, Adam Stevens, said they talked repeatedly to Bell about staying in front with the bad weather coming in.
“You can’t afford to have a long pit stop in a race like this,” Stevens said. “There was a lot more pressure on the guys on pit road.”
It’s the second win of the season for Bell, who won in early March at Phoenix Raceway, which also hosts the season finale in November.
Brad Keselowski finished second Sunday night in an RFK Racing Ford, followed by William Byron in a Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet. Toyota drivers completed the top five as 23XI Racing’s Tyler Reddick was followed by Denny Hamlin, one of Bell’s teammates at JGR.
AP photo by Matt Kelley / A pack of cars race down the front stretch at Charlotte Motor Speedway during the Coca-Cola 600 on Sunday in Concord, N.C.The race was red-flagged just as Kyle Larson arrived at Charlotte Motor Speedway to take over in his Hendrick No. 5 Chevrolet. The 2021 Cup Series had hoped to become the first driver since Tony Stewart to run all 1,100 laps as part of the Indianapolis 500-Coca-Cola 600 double, but bad weather in the open-wheel race quickly nixed those plans.
After finishing 18th in the Indy 500, the start of which was delayed by some four hours, Larson was shuttled out of the track, and after a plane flight sandwiched by a pair of helicopter rides, he arrived at Charlotte Motor Speedway to cheers from the crowd, just as he had the day before when coming from Indy to qualify for the NASCAR race.
He jogged to his pit stall in his firesuit and strapped on his helmet, only to have the race halted moments later by a heavy downpour. He never got a chance to turn a lap at Charlotte.
Under NASCAR rules, Larson is not allowed to participate in the playoffs unless he starts every race. However, Hendrick Motorsports can submit a waiver to NASCAR, asking for an exception to the rule.
There is no guarantee that waiver will be approved, but it’s hard to imagine NASCAR keeping one of its top drivers out of the postseason. He’s currently third in the standings and already has two wins this season.
Larson did not address the media after the race.
Justin Allgaier, who has started 82 races during his Cup Series career but hasn’t competed on the circuit on a full-time basis since 2015, was chosen to fill in for Larson because they have similar body types and require somewhat similar seat setups.
“My job was just not to wreck the car for Kyle,” Allgaier said.
Keselowski started the race 30th, but he worked his way up to second and felt like he had the car to win if the rain had held off.
“We ran down the 20 car twice and didn’t get to see it play out,” Keselowski said of chasing Bell. “It slipped through our fingers. I think we would have won had we run the Coke 600, but we ran the Coke 350. I’m bummed for our team, but the weather is what the weather is.”
Keselowski was coming off a win in the most recent points race for the Cup Series, with his victory two weeks earlier in the Goodyear 400 at Darlington ending a drought of more than three years.
The first half of Sunday’s race had nine leaders with Byron and Bell winning the first two stages.
Ryan Blaney’s bid to become the first back-to-back winner of the Coca-Cola 600 since Jimmie Johnson in 2004-05 ended when the front right tire of his Team Penske No. 12 Ford went down on lap 143, sending the car into the wall and ending the 2023 Cup Series champion’s night.
“I just came off pit road and put tires on it, and I don’t know if I ran over something, but one of them blew,” Blaney said. “I blew a tire going into (turn) three, so I don’t know if I hit something or what, but it’s kind of odd. We’ll have to go back and take a look at it. It stinks.”
Penske teammate Joey Logano, the $1 million winner of the exhibition NASCAR All-Star Race a week earlier at North Wilkesboro Speedway, was 18th at Charlotte. The two-time Cup Series champ is still seeking his first points win of 2024 with the regular season just past the halfway point.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump watched Sunday’s race alongside car owner Richard Childress atop the pit box for the No. 3 Chevrolet driven by Austin Dillon.
The Cup Series now heads to the St. Louis area for next Sunday’s race at World Wide Technology Raceway in Madison, Illinois. Logano won the inaugural edition of that race two years ago, while RCR’s Kyle Busch was the winner last year in his third and final victory of 2023. Like Logano, he is a two-time Cup Series champion still seeking his first points win this year.