Christopher Bell wins at Bristol, 4 drivers eliminated from Playoffs

Christopher Bell held off a hard-charging Brad Keselowski to win the Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway. It was the fourth win of the season for the Joe Gibbs Racing driver.

“I never in a million years would have thought that my first win at Bristol would have come with a tire fiasco (referring to excessive tire wear) like we had tonight,” Bell said after the race.

“Well, I’ll tell you what, I was nervous on the two (tires),” he continued. “I didn’t know if I wanted to be on the bottom or the top, and whenever Brad picked the top (lane) didn’t really give me an option. I had to pick the bottom.

“All night long, I don’t know, old tires just really, really pushed up in the middle of the corners, so I was hoping that those guys (starting ahead of him) on old tires would push up, and they did. They did, and I was able to get by or get underneath them.

“It wasn’t pretty there at the end, but we got her done.”

Notably, NASCAR supplied the teams with an extra set of tires in the final stage.

After the race, a disappointed Keselowski said, “Just the story of our season, just a 50/50 shot on the restart and I got the lane that couldn’t launch. Just frustrating. We had a great car, great strategy, put ourselves in position to, if not win, at least have a really, really solid day, and on that last restart,  just rolled the dice and didn’t get anything good.”

Zane Smith, Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano rounded out the top-five. Corey Heim, Carson Hocevar, Ales Bowman, Chase Briscoe and Ty Gibbs finished in the top-10.

Ty Gibbs led a race-high 201 laps and was on track to win his first career Cup Series race. However, he missed his pit stall on the last green flag stop and had to settle for a 10th-place finish.  

Four drivers were eliminated from the Playoffs – Austin Dillon, Shane van Gisbergen, Alex Bowman and Josh Berry.

The Cup Series returns to action Sunday, Sept. 21, to kick off the Round of 12 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway (2 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).

Cup Series Playoffs – Advancing to Round of 12

1. Denny Hamlin
2. Chase Briscoe
3. Kyle Larson
4. Bubba Wallace
5. Ryan Blaney
6. William Byron
7. Tyler Reddick
8. Christopher Bell
9. Chase Elliott
10. Joey Logano
11. Ross Chastain
12. Austin Cindric

Complete Results:

1. No. 20 Christopher Bell
2. No. 6 Brad Keselowski
3. No. 38 Zane Smith
4. No. 12 Ryan Blaney
5. No. 22 Joey Logano
6. No. 67 Corey Heim
7. No. 77 Carson Hocevar
8. No. 48 Alex Bowman
9. No. 19 Chase Briscoe
10. No. 54 Ty Gibbs
11. No. 17 Chris Buescher
12. No. 24 William Byron
13. No. 7 Justin Haley
14. No. 42 John Hunter Nemechek
15. No. 45 Tyler Reddick
16. No. 8 Kyle Busch
17. No. 71 Michael McDowell
18. No. 35 Riley Herbst
19. No. 1 Ross Chastain
20. No. 43 Erik Jones
21. No. 60 Ryan Preece
22. No. 47 Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
23. No. 4 Noah Gragson
24. No. 34 Todd Gilliland
25. No. 33 Austin Hill
26. No. 88 Shane van Gisbergen
27. No. 10 Ty Dillon
28. No. 3 Austin Dillon
29. No. 51 Cody Ware
30. No. 2 Austin Cindric
31. No. 11 Denny Hamlin
32. No. 5 Kyle Larson
33. No. 41 Cole Custer
34. No. 23 Bubba Wallace
35. No. 66 Chad Finchum
36. No. 16 A.J. Allmendinger
37. No. 99 Daniel Suarez
38. No. 9 Chase Elliott
39. No. 21 Josh Berry