SONOMA, Calif. — After a rough month of June, a broken wrist couldn’t stop Christopher Bell from having a bounce back day at Sonoma Raceway.
Following a vicious, 63G wreck at Michigan International Speedway that ended in a fractured left wrist, Bell needed to exit the car early last week on the street circuit at Naval Base Coronado. The San Diego track was too much for Bell to handle early in the healing process.
Turns out another week did wonders for his healing inside the car. Bell not only qualified a respectable 14th; he completed all 110 laps and brought the No. 20 Toyota home in fifth place despite a cast on the injured wrist.
It was a very welcome result for the Joe Gibbs Racing driver after a couple weeks of adversity, three straight runs outside the top 25 as he dealt with the ongoing recovery from the Michigan wreck.
“It was a great run,” Bell said. “Definitely what we needed. So proud of the effort of the racecars, obviously we’re really good. All of our team cars were great.”
Bell was, indeed, one of three JGR cars to finish inside the top five. Denny Hamlin was potentially headed there too before a spin inside the final stage left him fighting through traffic and relegated to 26th.
Arguably the best part of Bell’s day was his 50-point haul, third most of any driver on the afternoon, to boost him back up to 10th in the yearlong standings. Now 83 points clear of the 17th-place cutline, there’s a little bit of breathing room as the team regroups and hopes to battle for a championship come September.
Garnering those extra points came through strategy, with crew chief Adam Stevens looking to collect as many points as possible by keeping Bell out on track at the end of each stage. That worked well, as the car was capable of passing and then maintaining track position as the day unfolded.
“I thought Adam played a very conservative race,” Bell said. “I told him going into it that I really needed to be the person on offense. I didn’t want to be the guy on defense trying to block and pull guys off, so he kept me on offense, kept me on tires, and it worked out.”
It was exactly the way Stevens was hoping the race would play out too.
“We were in a spot after the last few weeks where we really felt like we needed to maximize our points, and it was going to be hard to beat SVG, too, after qualifying,” Stevens told Frontstretch. “So we went after the stage points and had a good enough car and a capable enough driver to get back up through the field.
“… Obviously, he’s still dealing with the sort of repercussions of Michigan.”
But Bell didn’t skip a beat, pushing himself physically to the absolute limit to garner a top-five result. From Stevens’ perspective, he was impressed how his driver navigated the 12-turn, 1.99-mile road course under the circumstances.
“There were no complaints today,” Stevens said. “Not that [Bell’s] one to complain, but it was certainly challenging with your wrist locked out in one position.
“You kind of have to pick where you want [your other hand to be], and turning the wheel so far both ways on a road course, it’s uncomfortable. It’s not easy going up the hill and down shifting, so you only have your left hand on the steering wheel. … Here in [turns] 1 and 2 is [also] super tough, especially on the restart.
“He had his hands full today.”
With the left-and-right-turn swing completed, the Cup Series now jumps from road courses back to ovals. Chicagoland Speedway next Sunday marks a return of the 1.5-mile track to the schedule for the first time since 2019.
Can Bell keep the momentum going next Sunday?
“It’s a fun track, and there’s a lot of people in this field that have probably never raced there, which is interesting,” Stevens said. “Not many people have turned laps there [including Bell at the Cup level]. So, we got some good notes from our teammate Denny [Hamlin], and hopefully, we can build off that and have a 50-minute practice to sort it out.”
All told, Bell can enjoy the long flight back east after a nice recovery weekend out in Wine Country.
“I had a good car,” Bell said. “Good cars do well, and we had a great one.”
Danny Peters has written for Frontstretch since 2006. An English transplant living in San Francisco, by way of New York City, he’s had an award-winning marketing career with some of the biggest companies sponsoring sports. Working with racers all over the country, his freelance writing has even reached outside the world of racing to include movie screenplays.
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