A day of racing in the desert turned into a smooth Sunday drive for Christopher Bell, as he took the lead with 41 laps to go and never looked back to cruise to his first win of the season in the Shriners Children's 500 at Phoenix Raceway. Bell's win is the seventh of his Cup career and the first of the season for not only Toyota, but also a first win by a non-Chevrolet Cup driver early in the 2024 season.
Despite strategy shaking up the running order considerably over the final stage of the race -- and despite lining up 20th on the final restart -- Bell was easily able to make his way through traffic over a long run, with his drive to the front finally reaching its zenith when Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Martin Truex Jr. came to pit road under green. Bell then drove away from the rest of the field, winning by more than five seconds over runner-up Chris Buescher.
Shriners Children's 500 unofficial results
- #20 - Christopher Bell
- #17 - Chris Buescher
- #54 - Ty Gibbs
- #6 - Brad Keselowski
- #12 - Ryan Blaney
- #1 - Ross Chastain
- #19 - Martin Truex Jr.
- #34 - Michael McDowell
- #14 - Chase Briscoe
- #45 - Tyler Reddick
"This one feels really good," Bell told Fox Sports. "Just a credit to [crew chief Adam Stevens], White Knight William, my engineers, my crew chief and all the mechanics on this thing. You don't get cars like that very often ... Just super, super proud to be on this 20 car. This Rheem Camry was amazing today.
"I feel like we have the capability of running races like this a lot. Hopefully this is the first of many this year."
Bell led a total of 50 laps on the day, with all of his laps led coming at essential times. In addition to the laps he led on his way to victory, Bell was also able to take the lead late in Stage 2 to pick up his first stage win of the season, giving him an additional playoff point to add to the five he earned by winning.
Bell's win also marked a weekend sweep for Joe Gibbs Racing, as the company also won Friday night's ARCA Menards Series race with William Sawalich and Saturday's NASCAR Xfinity Series race with Chandler Smith.
Strategy pays off
While Bell proved you can indeed pass and work your way through traffic with the new aerodynamic rules package introduced by NASCAR for short ovals, many more drivers found it quite challenging to work their way out of midpack and get to the front of the field. That prompted some alternate strategy calls during a rash of cautions early in the final stage of the race, which ended up altering the running order at the finish significantly.
As Tyler Reddick peeled off to pit road from the race lead, nine drivers in total -- led by Martin Truex Jr. -- who had pitted earlier elected not to come to pit road. And even among those who came to pit road, not all elected to take four tires, with a group led by Ty Gibbs electing to take just two tires.
With a 92-lap run to the finish unfolding from there, neither Truex nor Ryan Preece were able to make it to the finish on the fuel and tires that they had. However, many more could, as a number of drivers who came to pit road for the last time at Lap 209 -- led by Chris Buescher in second -- were able to both hold their track position and stretch their fuel load to earn great finishes.
Likewise, Ty Gibbs was able to parlay his two-tire stop into a new career-best finish in third. And ultimately, the drivers who tried something different on pit road earned far better finishes than the cars that looked to be the dominant ones of the day.
Tyler Reddick and Denny Hamlin tied each other with a race-high mark of 68 laps led, but neither was able to get their track position back after getting mired in traffic. While Reddick went from having race-winning form to having to strain for a 10th-place finish, Hamlin faced a much tougher task in having to battle back to 11th after he spun on Lap 215 while racing Reddick for the lead.
Between Bell, Reddick, Hamlin, Gibbs and Truex, 298 of Sunday's 312 laps were led by Toyota drivers, who had entered the day having led just 15 laps through four races at Phoenix in the Next Gen era thus far. The only non-Toyota driver to led during the race was Todd Gilliland's Ford, which paced the field for 14 circuits -- laps that set a new record for the most Front Row Motorsports has ever led in a single season a mere four races into the year.
John Hunter becomes the hunted
One Ford in the field who never really found a groove on Sunday was Joey Logano, as the No. 22 Ford spent much of the race in midpack and even went a lap down at a certain point. The two-time Cup champ eventually got his lap back and had the chance to earn a better finish when his race came to a grinding halt on lap 203, with another driver drawing his ire in the process.
Entering Turn 1, Logano was run into from behind by John Hunter Nemechek, triggering a five-car pileup that ended Logano's race as well as Corey LaJoie's and Derek Kraus'. Logano was unhappy with the second-generation Nemechek afterward, particularly with the explanation that Nemechek offered over his team radio.
Nemechek claimed to his team that he hadn't meant to run into the back of Logano, but that Logano checked up to get into the corner earlier than he was anticipating. That wasn't a satisfactory answer for Logano, who said Nemechek needed to take responsibility for his actions while speaking to reporters at the infield care center.
"He just overdrove the corner behind me and wrecked us ... You've got to lift to make the corners," Logano said. "You can't hold it wide-open around Phoenix, and maybe he should take a look and realize he can't do that too. He drove straight in the back of me, and he needs to be man enough to own up to that."
The accident also had the residual effect of ending the longest active streak of races running at the finish for any driver in the Cup Series. For Corey LaJoie, it marked his first DNF since Talladega in fall 2022, ending a 44-race streak without a DNF -- which includes the entire 2023 season, where he was the only driver to be running at the finish of every single race.
Race results rundown
- Well behind Christopher Bell at the checkered flag, a dramatic fight for the last spot in the top five ended up playing out between the defending Cup champion and the driver who entered Phoenix as the most-recent winner at the track. Ryan Blaney wound up prevailing over Ross Chastain with a last lap pass in Turn 4, beating him narrowly at the finish line to give him his sixth-straight top five at Phoenix.
- While his strategy ultimately didn't work out and he went a lap down pitting under the green flag, Martin Truex Jr. had the distinct advantage of fresh tires and a 40-lap run to the end, which he used to not only get back on the lead lap but also drive all the way to a seventh-place finish. Ryan Preece did not fare nearly so well, as he went from running second early in the final run to finishing a lap down in 23rd.
- Former Phoenix winner Chase Briscoe carried the banner for Stewart-Haas Racing with a ninth-place finish, but it was Noah Gragson who once again got everyone's attention. Only one week after a sixth-place run at Las Vegas, Gragson qualified seventh and spent most of Sunday's race running inside the top 10 before finishing 12th, just missing out on his third top 10 in four races to open the year as he shows a renewed energy and revitalized form.
- Another driver who continues to impress is Carson Hocevar, who started 10th and finished 15th for his second top 15 in a row and his third in just 13 Cup starts. Hocevar now ranks 24th in the Cup Series standings, with a 22-point advantage over Josh Berry early in the Rookie of the Year battle.
- Despite winning two of the first three races to start the season, Sunday was a highly dissatisfying one for Hendrick Motorsports. Kyle Larson was the only Hendrick driver to finish inside the top 15 in 14th, and William Byron, Chase Elliott and Alex Bowman would all end up finishing together in a cluster from 18th-20th. They at least fared better than the Richard Childress Racing cars, which struggled throughout the weekend and were both involved in crashes on Sunday with Kyle Busch finishing one lap down in 22nd and Austin Dillon finishing many laps down in 32nd.
Next race
The spring race at Bristol Motor Speedway returns to concrete, and the NASCAR Cup Series heads back east to the hills of Tennessee and Thunder Valley for the Food City 500 next Sunday at 3:30 p.m. ET on Fox.