NEWTON, Iowa – Christopher Bell and crew chief Adam Stevens have put their No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing team in position to win all season long but have fallen just short on several occasions.
This trend continued on Sunday (Aug. 9) in the Iowa Corn 350 at Iowa Speedway as Bell moved through the field quickly after starting back in 22nd.
He captured the lead for the first time on Lap 144 and went on to win the second stage, collecting 14 stage points in total during the event.
In the final stage, Bell remained up front but lost the lead after Chase Elliott stayed out, but Bell passed him to move into second behind Ryan Blaney.
Bell got around Blaney with just under 100 laps to go and once again looked poised to get his first checkered flag of the 2026 season.
Then came the final green flag pit cycle of the race, and Stevens made the call to take four tires with roughly 60 laps to go.
Bell’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, Ty Gibbs, advanced up the running order as well during the final stage and was within striking distance of the No. 20 Toyota.
Gibbs and his crew chief Tyler Allen made the call to take only two tires during their green flag stop, which turned out to be the race-winning move.
Gibbs came out ahead of Bell and took over the lead after Ross Chastain finally came to pit road to end the cycle of pit stops with around 20 laps to go.
Bell tried to get Gibbs out of shape, but he too was sliding around the track, and as they both worked around lap traffic, Bell could not work up enough of a run to get around Gibbs, giving the driver of the No. 54 his second career win.
As for Bell, he had to settle for his seventh runner-up finish of the season after leading 108 laps in total on the day. This also marks a 30-race drought since Bell’s last win back in the Bristol Motor Speedway night race last season.
“This is what you call a bad second-place finish for sure,” Bell told reporters after the race. “Ty [Gibbs] did a really good job. He did a great job managing the race …. he just didn’t make a mistake.”
Stevens believed he had a car capable of winning from the beginning of the day, and his call at the end just went the other way.
“With all the information in front of me, I felt like I went with the 52 percent or 53 percent call versus the 47 and it just didn’t work,” Stevens told Frontstretch after the race. “It was close, but sometimes close just isn’t enough.”
On the bright side, Bell jumped from 10th to sixth in the standings as the circuit heads to two more short tracks in the next couple of weeks, including New Hampshire Motor Speedway, where Bell has had a lot of success in his NASCAR career thus far.
Michael Bellifemini joined Frontstretch in February 2026 as a contributor. Bellifemini was born and raised in New Jersey and graduated from Seton Hall University. He called Seton Hall men's and women's basketball games for their college radio station, 89.5 FM WSOU, and continues to broadcast in the area. Outside of covering NASCAR, Bellifemini is also an avid baseball, football, basketball, and hockey fan and enjoys watching different sports leagues on a daily basis.