While winning on the race track, the key question for Christopher Bell is if he’s losing off it.
The Joe Gibbs Racing driver heads into Saturday’s Xfinity race at Watkins Glen International (3 p.m. ET on NBC) seeking a record-tying fourth consecutive series victory.
Saturday’s race will be his 81st career start in either the Xfinity or Camping World Truck Series. While Bell has won 15 percent of those races, he has yet to make his Cup debut. That puts him behind many drivers who have since moved to Cup full-time.
There seems to be little doubt about Bell’s ability to move to Cup, it’s just a matter of when.
He said Wednesday that his preference is to run in Cup next year if there is an opportunity.
“I don’t feel like I need another year of Xfinity,” said Bell, who has won five of his 27 career Xfinity starts. “I think the best way for me to win at the Cup level is to get there and start trying at it.
“You know, I feel like I’m different than the guys that have been coming up here over the last couple years, and everyone is saying that they’re moving guys up too quick, and the difference is that I’m 23 years old, I’m not 18, 19 or even 20 years old. I’ve got a lot of racing experience, and right now I feel like I’m in my prime as a race car driver. If the opportunity comes to go Cup racing next year, I definitely don’t want to waste another year in my prime, so to speak, of not learning and not getting that experience of Cup racing.”
Many of the drivers he hopes to race against in Cup made their series debut after fewer Xfinity and Truck starts than Bell.
Consider the list of how many races in Xfinity and Truck that current Cup drivers competed in before making their Cup debut:
12 races — Joey Logano (12 Xfinity, 0 Truck)
33 — Erik Jones (12 Xfinity, 21 Truck)
36 — Kyle Larson (30 Xfinity, 6 Truck)
36 — Alex Bowman (36 Xfinity, 0 Truck)
46 — Chris Buescher (46 Xfinity, 0 Truck)
47 — Chase Elliott (38 Xfinity, 9 Truck)
48 — Trevor Bayne (48 Xfinity, 0 Truck)
49 — Matt DiBenedetto (49 Xfinity, 0 Truck)
54 — Ryan Blaney (20 Xfinity, 34 Truck)
57 — William Byron (33 Xfinity, 24 Truck)
58 — Austin Dillon (11 Xfinity, 47 Truck)
80 — Christopher Bell (27 Xfinity, 53 Truck)
84 — Ty Dillon (36 Xfinity, 48 Truck)
95 — Daniel Suarez (68 Xfinity, 27 Truck)
130 — Bubba Wallace (85 Xfinity, 45 Truck)
Every driver progresses at their own rate and what works for one driver isn’t going to work for another. Still, five of those drivers on the above list (Logano, Jones, Buescher, Bayne and Blaney) won a Cup race by their second full-time season.
The bottom line on what Bell does next year will be money. If there’s enough sponsorship money backing him, there will be a way to get him to Cup. Without that money, he seems headed for another year in Xfinity with Toyota’s Cup lineup seemingly set.
Cup organizations are limited to four teams and Joe Gibbs Racing already employs former champion Kyle Busch, former Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin, 2017 Cup Rookie of the Year Erik Jones and Daniel Suarez, who is coming off a career-best runner-up finish last weekend at Pocono.
The only other high-profile Toyota organization is Furniture Row Racing, which cut back to one team this season because of sponsorship and faces new sponsorship questions after 5-hour Energy recently announced it won’t return after this season. While reigning champion Martin Truex Jr. is a free agent at the end of the season, he said last month at Kentucky that “I don’t plan on doing anything different” for next season.
Bell said Friday at Watkins Glen that he was not aware of any plans to put him in a Cup car for a race this season.
“Right now, we’re right in the middle of closing out the regular season with three road courses in front of me, so I’ve got my hands full right now, especially going into road course season here and trying to maintain our points lead,” Bell said. “Nothing’s been talked about or said to me about that.”
He said he would be open to running a Cup car this year even if it came during the Xfinity playoffs. Bell said he believes it would still help him.
2. The mystery of Kyle Larson and road courses
Kyle Larson has an average starting spot of 5.2 in his Cup career at road courses.
His average finish in those races is 18.1.
Only once — Aug. 2014 at Watkins Glen — has Larson finished in the top 10 at a road course.
“I didn’t grow up racing anything close to a road course, but I always enjoy the challenge of competing at places like Watkins Glen,” Larson said. “We usually have pretty good speed at the road courses on short runs, but just need to be better a few laps after we fire off.
“I’ve got two poles at Sonoma now and have started the last two races at Watkins Glen on the front row in second, so we have speed but unfortunately haven’t been able to carry that speed for the whole race. Even though the tracks are fairly different, hopefully we learned a good bit about a month ago at Sonoma that we can put to use this weekend and put together a good race up until the finish.”
Larson’s frustration with road courses was evident at Sonoma in June. After starting on the pole, he finished 14th.
“I just don’t understand how I can try and take care of my tires and still be the worst car on long runs here. I don’t understand,” Larson said on the radio to his team during the race.
“That makes two of us,” Larson’s crew chief Chad Johnston responded.
To help his road course ability, Larson is running in Saturday’s Xfinity race.
3. Extra laps for many Cup drivers
Several drivers who score points in the Cup series are competing in other events this weekend at Watkins Glen International to gain extra experience on a road course.
Erik Jones and Bubba Wallace are entered in today’s K&N Pro Series East race.
Austin Dillon, Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano, AJ Allmendinger, Kyle Larson and Aric Almirola are entered in Saturday’s Xfinity race.
Logano won the Xfinity race at Watkins Glen in 2015 and ’16. Keselowski won this race in 2013.
This is the first time Allmendinger, who won the 2014 Cup race at Watkins Glen, has competed in the Xfinity race at Watkins Glen. He last drove in the Xfinity Series in 2013. He ran two races that season, winning at Road America and Mid-Ohio.
4. Could history repeat?
Chase Elliott seeks his first career Cup win. If he gets it this weekend, he would match his dad Bill in scoring his first career Cup win at a road course. Bill Elliott’s first career Cup victory came at Riverside International Raceway on Nov. 20, 1983.
Already Chase Elliott has matched his dad in runner-up finishes before scoring that first win. Chase has eight runner-up finishes. That’s how many his dad had before he scored his first Cup win.
5. Something to shoot for
While the Big 3 of Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr. have seemingly won everything this year, there’s one are they’re short.
They’ve yet to score a win on a road course, restrictor-plate track, short track and a 1.5-mile track in the same season.
The last to do it was Joey Logano. He won the Daytona 500 and the fall Talladega race for his restrictor-plate wins. He was conquered Watkins Glen for the road course element and added wins at Bristol (short track) and Charlotte and Kansas (1.5-mile tracks).