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Entering last year’s Round of 8 elimination race at Martinsville Speedway with a 29-point cushion above the cutline, the highest among all the drivers eyeing the Championship 4 spot, Christopher Bell appeared ready to lock down his third straight Championship 4 berth. Thirty-four points would have sealed the deal for the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing driver at Phoenix. But while Ryan Blaney won his spot with a race win, a post-race review flipped Bell’s fate, handing the final slot to William Byron instead. Bell had crossed the finish line in P18, tying Byron in points, which would’ve advanced him on a tiebreaker owing to a better finish earlier in the round. But controversy erupted over how he’d earned that position. On the final lap, Bell drove under Bubba Wallace in Turn 3, sending both cars up the track. His Toyota slapped the outside wall and scraped down the straightaway in a desperate lunge for points. After a lengthy review, NASCAR ruled the move a safety violation, dropping Bell to P22 as the last car one lap down, throwing a gut punch that ended his title hopes on a technicality. Now, a year later, Bell is returning to Martinsville with déjà vu hanging in the air, and the largest points cushion of any remaining contender, 37 above the cutline. Yet the memory of last year’s heartbreak keeps him grounded. With Kyle Larson trailing by just one point, Bell refuses to count anything beyond that slim edge as an advantage. “I certainly have moved on past it, but I don’t know if it’s something I’ll ever forget. It was a day that… sucked. But with that being said, we eye just long for this opportunity and 12 months later, here we are again. So hopefully we can make up for it and get back to that championship event, and we’ll see what happens tomorrow.” Addressing his mindset entering the weekend, Bell added, “Well, using that 36 number, it’s really irrelevant because we’re either going to make it if nobody wins or, you know, I’m plus one right now. So, it’s plus 36. It doesn’t feel right to say that. We’re really plus one right now. And that’s how Larson feels. That’s how I feel. That’s how my team feels. That’s how his team feels. So, it’s going to be a battle and we know basically whoever scores more points than each other is going to make it.” Statistically, the duel couldn’t be tighter as both Bell and Larson share identical 15.5 average finishes at Martinsville, Bell in 11 starts, Larson in 21, and each has one win to his name. Yet Larson has the consistency edge, with seven top-fives to Bell’s two. With merely one point separating them and a Championship 4 berth on the line, Martinsville is expected to deliver a slugfest worthy of its reputation.
