Two crews for one pit stop couldn’t save Christopher Bell’s winning streak

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Christopher Bell was hoping to become just the eighth driver in the modern era of NASCAR to win four consecutive Cup races, but it didn’t work out that way for the driver of the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.

The problems began even before the race did, qualifying 13th before being forced to the rear of the field after the team opted to swap out the throttle body. He marched forward in the early running, benefitting greatly from a caution in the middle of green-flag pitstops that helped him to a tenth-place finish in the opening stage.

Bell completes one pit stop with two different teams

Bell then drove all the way up to second on track by Lap 108 of 267 and looked set to take the race lead in the near future. But during the next round of pit stops, something truly strange happened. His crew failed to get one of the wheels secured (a common issue throughout Sunday’s race).

After exiting his stall, Bell followed the direction of crew chief Adam Stevens and quickly pulled into his teammate Chase Briscoe’s pit box where they kindly tightened the wheels. It was a peculiar sight to see a car complete a pit stop by using two different teams, but it likely saved him from losing a wheel out on track. Of course, it still cost him most of his track position and resulted in a penalty for pitting outside his own box, but that’s still better than facing a more severe penalty for a loose wheel.

Bell then spent the rest of the race making up lost ground, ultimately finishing 12th and failing to lead a single lap as his win streak came to an unceremonious end.

“I mean, just – I don’t know,” said Bell when asked out he was feeling after the race. “It’s fine. I was a grind today for sure. I don’t really know how I feel yet, but we certainly didn’t do what we did the last couple of weeks and that was just have a nice clean race.

“I think the Interstate Camry was definitely capable of competing for the win when we were at our best but just going to the back and to the front and to the back and to the front, we just didn’t get a handle on the balance, because it changes so much from being back there. I felt like we were in position in stage two to contend for another win, but it got away from us.”