Christopher Bell unlucky, lucky and good in Chili Bowl prelim win

Chili Bowl can be such a rollercoaster of emotion and Christopher Bell rode it all the way back to a record he once again shares with Kyle Larson on Thursday night in the Tulsa Expo Center.

Nine preliminary night victories.

With five laps to go, it didn’t look like Bell was going to make it happen, and much of it wasn’t his fault. Success in this event requires execution but also performance in equal parts and Bell had awful luck in drawing the pole for his heat race.

Starting near the front at the end of the night means scoring more passing points than everyone else racing that day and that’s impossible to do when starting up front. Bell also started outside pole in his qualifier.

As a result, Bell would have to win starting where he had never won one of these before, in eighth.

First? Check.
Second? Check.
Third? Check.
Fourth? Check.
Sixth? Check.

By five laps to go, Bell had stalled out in fifth and just didn’t think he had a shot, until a pair of cautions shifted the narrative.

“Before the yellow flag came out, I would have told you I would be surprised to win,” Bell said. “Going into the night, I think (all of us up front) had the expectation of winning when you draw in on Thursday night. But the way it was started to unfold, I didn’t think it was going to play out for me.

“This place is magic and it’s never over until it’s over and that’s the way it is here.”

How it was took the form of a Trevor Cline spin. When the race resumed, Bell found something on the bottom and picked off Spencer Bayston and Kyle Cummins. Another caution came two laps later for a multi-car stack-up and Bell was able to get CJ Leary on the restart.

Two laps later, Bell got Ryan Bernal and Leary followed him through into the other transfer. What in the world did he find?

“With five laps to go, I’m going to go back to doing what I thought had been working for me,” Bernal said. “Sometimes, it’s hard being leader because it’s similar to how I got Bell last year, snookering him on the bottom.

“He could just sail it in there and see if it was going to work. I thought our lane was the only lane that was going to work so I just went out there and tried to execute what I done and they both snookered me and I was out to lunch.”

Leary echoed that sentiment.

“I never thought the bottom would have worked, and Christopher proved me wrong, and then I followed him and it worked,” Leary said. “I wish I would have gone down there sooner now.”

So how did Bell find it?

“The top just got so hard to consistently run laps and nobody could really get off Turn 4 very well because it was so slick to a freaking parking curb up there,” Bell said. “So I was way back, but I noticed I wasn’t getting off Turn 3 and no one was, so I though ‘maybe I can try and stick down there halfway decent, I’ll be able to do good.

“And all of a sudden, I started to pass down there.”

That’s again, equal parts brilliance to realize everyone was just spinning their tires above the cushion but also lucky enough that it worked when he just guessed on that line.

All told, it was a five-lap masterclass to recover from a hole that was entirely not of his making in where he drew his pill to start the day. Like, how hard was that?  

“I mean, yeah, it's super hard and a lot of things have to go your way,” Bell conceded. “Obviously, (Blake) Hahn did it two nights ago, but when I saw the group of cars in front of me in CJ, Bernal, Spencer Bayston and Jacob Denney, I didn’t think it was going to pan out tonight.

“Then the yellow flag came out, and it bunched us back up, and I tried something different that worked.”

Continued engine or throttle issues for Swindell Speedlab, this time for USAC Sprint Car champion Kyle Cummins.

Matt Sherrell drove to an 11th-place finish for Dan and Patricia Harris’ 2nd Opinion Auto Center Racing team after having to come all the way through a C-Main.

Feature results

1. Christopher Bell
2. C.J. Leary
3. Ryan Bernal
4. Spencer Bayston
5. Kyle Cummins
6. Tanner Thorson
7. Chris Windom
8. Karter Sarff
9. Jacob Denney
10. Ashton Torgerson
11. Matt Sherrell
12. Frank Flud
13. Brady Bacon
14. Trevor Cline
15. Joel Myers Jr.
16. Brecken Reese
17. Parker Jones
18. Kalib Henry
19. Jeffrey Abbey
20. Kyle Simon
21. Brad Wyatt
22. Brant Woods
23. Jacob Hughes
24. Andrew Deal