Following his big win at Phoenix on Sunday, Christopher Bell was asked about the short track package and how his car handled it. The NASCAR driver wasn’t super ecstatic about it but said there was a difference between last fall and now.
Christopher Bell picks up an early season win at the championship track. The real question is about how the car raced. Bell was one of the few drivers who found themselves moving up through the field.
Of course, it looks like Bell and crew chief Adam Stevens hit on the setup. Whatever they had going on worked perfectly with this new package and it gave them a very convincing win. In fact, it was the largest margin of victory in the Next Gen era.
In his postrace press conference, Christopher Bell admitted the car handled differently. It wasn’t necessarily great, but it was different.
“It was different. I don’t think that it was any better in traffic. It drove different. The car handled significantly different. I’m sure that the racing probably didn’t look much better, but it was different inside the car.”
As for the tires? Bell knows his experience was not the same as his competitors.
“I mean, the package that we had really liked the new tires, so it was good for me and bad for other people. I’m going to say that it was great and other people are going to say it wasn’t very good.
“Yeah, I mean, the racing probably in my eyes wasn’t much different than what we’ve had in the past.”
Marginal differences, for the most part, it sounds like according to Christopher Bell. Fans online were not very enthralled by the racing, but Phoenix has not provided great racing for a few years.
Christopher Bell could pass, no one else really could
There is going to be a battle between the eternal NASCAR optimists, the realists, and of course, the Debbie Downers who are never happy. Was there improvement? Yes. Was the racing good? That depends on how you judge this race.
The Christopher Bell win wasn’t a foregone conclusion. Let’s not forget that Bell found himself in traffic to start the final stage and worked his way up from P20 to get to the lead. Tyler Reddick, another driver who led laps and looked like a winning car, floundered in traffic.
If you compare this race to Atlanta a couple of weeks ago, no it wasn’t good. Then I think back to last season in the two races at Phoenix – this was better. Again, incrementally so, and there is a lot more to be done on NASCAR’s end, but it was as they say, a step in the right direction.
The one-mile oval of Phoenix isn’t going to be the best example of what this short track package can do. It’s a weird configuration that is completely unique compared to other tracks on the schedule. Christopher Bell just had the right setup. Bristol this week is run with the intermediate package. But Martinsville, Richmond – that is when we will learn a lot more about the new package.
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