Christopher Bell still feels like he missed a major opportunity on Sunday evening at Las Vegas Motor Speedway when he fell short to Kyle Larson by just 0.082.
If he closes out, he is locked into a second consecutive NASCAR Cup Series championship race appearance at Phoenix Raceway but instead it’s his long-time rival Kyle Larson who struck first in qualifying into the final four.
And no, Bell was not going to rough Larson up to get the job done, no matter how much that narrative has been issued across the industry.
“Whenever I got out of the car, I genuinely didn’t know what other move I could have made to win the race,” Bell said. “I’m not going to blatantly wreck somebody and I don’t think I had the opportunity to blatantly wreck him. It’s not like I lifted coming to the checkered flag. I didn’t lift on the throttle.”
Bell compared his situation to the movie ‘Sully’ about the Federal Aviation Administration investigation into Captain Chesley Sullenberger of US Airways Flight 1549 fame.
“Everyone critique Sully, he should have done this or that, and he said, ‘look man, this is real life and in the moment, these were my decisions’ and this was that. In the moment, I chose what I chose and maybe if I had 18 different opportunities, maybe I would have won the race.”
But he wasn’t going to wreck Larson to do it, and as a result, he’s two points below the cut line with two races before the final elimination instead of locked in.
In real time, Bell was especially disappointed because he knew that could make or break his entire season come two Sundays from now, and that’s why he told reporters afterwards that it was ‘his chance’ to make the final four.
“I felt like that was my moment because we had a great Saturday, I won the pole, I passed (Larson) early on in the race and run out front of him for a period of time. So, we had everything that we needed to go out there and win the race,” Bell said.
“You never know what’s going to happen, right? Certainly, my opportunity to make the final four is not over by any means but that was a ‘golden ticket’ that was a car length away from me and I didn’t make it happen.
“I know that if I want to make (Phoenix), I have to win Homestead or Martinsville. Now, that’s if everything goes normally. If people have issues, then it could be dramatically different but we’re going to have to duplicate what we did at Las Vegas.”
In other words, Vegas was ‘his chance’ but that isn’t the same as his ‘only chance.’
Updated playoff grid
Kyle Larson, Win Advanced
William Byron +9
Denny Hamlin +2
Martin Truex Jr. +2
—
Christopher Bell -2
Tyler Reddick -16
Ryan Blaney -17
Chris Buescher -23
Dogfight for three spots
William Byron has been the de facto favorite all year, but with Larson leap frogging everyone by virtue of winning his way in, the driver of the Hendrick Motorsports No. 24 isn’t sure there is such a thing anymore.
He went from 20 points above the cut line to just nine.
“All that stuff goes out the window now when you look at how close we are,” Byron said. “Everyone is pretty much on equal footing now. It’s not really about who is the favorite or whatnot, it’s about who can perform over the next two races, and who has the best car at the next two tracks.”
Those tracks are Homestead-Miami Speedway and Martinsville Speedway — places where Byron has been historically good both with the NextGen car and before it.
Nine points sounds downright comfortable compared to two points above it, which is where Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Denny Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr. reside. Their other teammate, Bell, is virtually in the same boat, percentage wise, at -2.
But that’s still four drivers racing for three spots assuming the other three contenders in Reddick, Blaney and Buescher don’t win — and they absolutely feel like they have to win over the next two races.
“Go to the race track, be fast, win,” Buescher said. “That fixes everything.”
Reddick was especially crestfallen after Vegas, because despite Homestead being one of his historical best tracks, he was telling people entering this round that he felt even better about last weekend’s race and it just didn’t happen.
“We’re definitely further behind than we wanted to be coming out of Vegas,” Reddick said. “You guys know the stats better than me, but I swear I’ve heard it — we’ve led at like every mile-and-a-half track going into Vegas and then we didn’t lead a single one while we were there.
“That’s frustrating for sure because the car showed it had good speed; our handling was not what we’re kind of used to, and we really thought we were going to have a handle on it, literally, going into the race on Sunday, and we did not. Pretty much from the beginning of that race, it was a handful all day.
“The car had speed, it’s just the handling wasn’t there. It’s very unlike us. In practice, the car was fast, it was just very difficult to hang on and manage it over the course of a run, manage it in traffic, and it just built for a tough day for us. That was definitely disappointing but at the same time, we can learn from our mistakes and certain things we didn’t really like that our car did at Vegas as we approach Homestead. It was a tough day, for sure. Hopefully, on the other side of it, when we get to Homestead, we’ll be better.”
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.