DARLINGTON, S.C. — Christopher Bell is finally second to none.
Bell’s crazy, frustrating year of seven runner-up finishes without a victory in the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season came to an end Sunday night at Darlington Raceway.
The driver of the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 20 Toyota passed reigning Cup Series champion Kyle Larson’s Hendrick Motorsports No. 5 Chevrolet with 18 laps left at “The Track Too Tough to Tame,” then held to win the Southern 500 — a NASCAR crown jewel event and the opener to the 10-race Chase postseason for the top-tier Cup Series.
Bell had not won since last September’s playoff event at Tennessee’s Bristol Motor Speedway, a stretch of 33 races, but he opened up a lead of nearly a second on teammate Ty Gibbs to win in Cup Series competition on the oddly shaped 1.366-mile oval for the first time on his 15th try.
“Darlington is the epitome of NASCAR,” Bell said. “This is better than a dream come true.”
Bell’s 14th career points win on NASCAR’s top level pushed him into second in the 16-driver standings for the Chase — behind only teammate Denny Hamlin, but still with a long way to go to secure what would be the 31-year-old’s first Cup Series championship.
“No off weeks. Right back to work next week,” said Bell, adding of taking the title: “I still feel I’m going to have win more races if I want to.”
Bell, who’s in his sixth Cup Series season at JGR after driving as a rookie for Leavine Family Racing, wound up fifth in the final standings the past two years, just missing out on being one of the four title-eligible drivers in last race of the season under the old playoff format. He was part of that quartet the two seasons before that, finishing fourth in the standings in 2023 and third in 2022.
The rules of the Cup Series postseason changed this year, with all 16 drivers competing in all 10 playoff races without eliminations.
Gibbs finished second for JGR, while Tyler Reddick, a five-time winner during season, was third in the No. 45 for 23XI Racing — the team whose ownership includes Hamlin — as Toyota drivers swept the podium.
Chase drivers accounted for nine of the top 10 finishers. Blaney was fourth in a Team Penske Ford, followed by Larson in the highest-finishing Chevrolet, then Chase Briscoe in another JGR Toyota, Josh Berry in a Wood Brothers Racing Ford, Bubba Wallace in a 23XI Toyota, Joey Logano in a Team Penske Ford, and Ryan Preece in a Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing Ford. Berry was the only driver in that group not in the playoffs.
Bell’s crew chief, Adam Stevens, tried to keep his driver focused as the number of runner-up finishes grew, along with Bell’s frustration. It was important for him to understand that him finishing second wasn’t because his team wasn’t doing everything it could to succeed.
“You have to really come into each weekend with a clean slate, and he’s done a fantastic job with that,” Stevens said.
Larson gambled during the sixth and final caution, staying on the track while other competitors, including Bell, went into the pits for fresh tires.
And for a bit, Larson’s bet look like it might pay off as he opened a sizeable lead on the restart and forced Bell and the others to come get him. Bell eventually did, moving low on the track to put Larson in his rearview mirror.
Larson thought more drivers would have stayed out of the pits on the final caution to give him some cover and distance before the fresh-tire drivers got going.
“But Bell got to second so fast, I was straight into defense,” Larson said. “Not able to run the lines I ultimately wanted to to take care of my tires.”
Briscoe was looking to make a bit of history with a third straight Southern 500 victory — only NASCAR Hall of Fame driver Jeff Gordon had ever won more in a row, with four from 1995-98 — and he fought off a pit-road penalty for running out of fuel at the end of stage two that took him from the lead to 20th. However, he could not keep pace with Bell at the end.
Hamlin, the top seed in the Chase, came into the race with a 25-point lead over second-seeded Blaney. Hamlin had started the final stage in the top five on the track when he got hit from behind on the 237th lap by Michael McDowell, who is not in the Chase, and Hamlin’s JGR Toyota struck the wall in turn four.
Hamlin immediately told his team on the radio, “The toe links are gone,” but the incident did not draw a caution and he had to keep racing, falling to 20th as he and his pit crew waited for a chance to fix the damage. While the toe links were not damaged, there were extensive repairs, and Hamlin was a lap down. He wound up 18th.
“It was certainly not the finish we were hoping for,” Hamlin said. “We certainly made gains on it all day.”
He wasn’t the only one of the Chase competitors who had problems. Hendrick driver William Byron was in position for a top-10 finish when he spun out with what he believed was a flat tire. After a trip to the pits, smoke billowed out of Byron’s Chevrolet, and he went back to the garage to end his day.
Now he’s at the bottom of the standings.
RFK Racing had high hopes with two of its three drivers in the postseason, but Chris Buescher could not gain any momentum at Darlington and rode in the back of the pack for most of way, while Preece’s 10th-place finish moved him up only one spot in the standings.
Preece’s victory at Daytona International Speedway last weekend in the regular-season finale was the first of his Cup Series career and secured the last Chase berth. With nothing to lose as the driver at the bottom of the field, he pledged to continue to be aggressive in the playoffs and was at Darlington — the payoff just wasn’t enough for the kind of surge he needs to truly contend.
And while 23XI co-owner Michael Jordan watched from the pits, his two Chase drivers, Reddick and Wallace, went from running 1-2 at the end of the first stage to falling out of the mix down the stretch.
The Chase continues next weekend at World Wide Technology Raceway in Madison, Illinois, just outside of St. Louis. Hamlin won the playoff race there a year ago.