It was something he never thought he would do. Bell even told his wife, Morgan, there was no way. But things had changed. Actually, it was Bell who had changed, and that’s because Joe Gibbs Racing placed restrictions on its drivers’ extracurricular activities, particularly when it came to racing on dirt.
“I really had to change my life,” Bell told ESPN. “I changed my lifestyle and the hobbies that I enjoyed doing. And I had really started to get in a pretty comfortable routine by the end of last year.”
Bell is a dirt racer. The Oklahoma native’s dirt background led to Toyota discovering and signing him to its driver development pipeline.
Over time, Bell transitioned to pavement, became a NASCAR champion in the Truck Series, and is now a perennial Cup Series contender. So, when Bell wasn’t contesting NASCAR races, he kept himself occupied and fulfilled by running on dirt. At one time, the car that Bell won the Chili Bowl (dirt’s equivalent of the Daytona 500) in sat inside his home.
Without dirt racing, though, he had to find other outlets. Without dirt racing, Bell had to work through managing his emotions between NASCAR races, his dalliances in the dirt serving as a mind cleanser or distraction, and without them he would fixate on the last race.
“I golfed there for a little bit,” Bell said. “I still watched dirt races, especially through the summer months because there is dirt racing every night, but it had gotten to the point where I had accepted that dirt racing might have been a time I’d moved out of, and it wasn’t a part of my current life.
“It took me a while to accept that. I had a little bit of jealousy toward dirt racers (because) I wanted to do that, for sure. As time moved on, I had become content with where I was in life.”
Team owner Joe Gibbs had good intentions when he made the decision. Bell describes the mandate as a result of a chain of events that made everyone in the team consider what is in the best interest of the drivers and the organization.
It started in late 2022 when D.J. VanderLey suffered a C4 spinal cord injury in a Micro Sprint race in Texas. He was paralyzed from the neck down. Bell competed in the same race.
“So, there was a couple things that happened and it made sense,” Bell said. “It made sense that they said, ‘Hey, if that happened to us, we’d be in deep trouble.’ Joe Gibbs Racing and Hendrick are different. They’re different companies. They have different levels of financial responsibilities. When people say, well, ‘Kyle [Larson] is able to go race. Why?’ Well, he’s in a different situation than what I am. Gibbs to Hendrick is not apples to apples.”
And so, Bell did what he needed to do to move on from dirt racing. In November, however, it was given back to him. Gibbs lifted the restriction after a “culmination of pressure” broke through as Bell, Ty Gibbs and new hire Chase Briscoe, also a dirt racer, continued to express interest in running dirt events.
“I was like, ‘What? Is this real life? Are you being serious right now?'” Bell said.
It didn’t take long for him to get back behind the wheel. His first race was in December in Du Quoin, Illinois. He won. From there, Bell went to the Tulsa Shootout in January. Again, Bell won, and did so in a photo finish over Larson. At the Chili Bowl later that month, Bell finished 10th but won the Race of Champions invitational the same week. Last month, Bell ran at Volusia with the World of Outlaws ahead of the Daytona 500.
Bell anticipates contesting 15 to 20 dirt races this season. His upcoming schedule includes stops on the High Limit Sprint Car Series tour this weekend in Las Vegas and their event in Texas next month.
However, there is another reason besides passion (and mental health) that Bell values running dirt races: seat time translates to NASCAR success. It’s why, he says, he feels the best he ever has as a driver.
“You can’t simulate race time,” Bell said. “Being in the seat and making those split-second decisions that you have to make all the time, you can’t deny that, if you don’t race for a period of time, your decision making is not going to be as sharp as it could be.”
Given the past three weeks, it’s hard to argue with him. Bell and the No. 20 Gibbs team have won the past three NASCAR Cup Series races at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Circuit of the Americas (and Phoenix Raceway.
“He’s a race car driver,” said Adam Stevens, Bell’s crew chief. “For him to stay sharp, he needs to drive a race car, and cutting simulator laps just doesn’t do that. You wouldn’t ask a professional golfer to lock his clubs in the closet for three months over the winter and show up at the first tournament. I bet he wouldn’t play very well.
“But for him to compete and stay sharp, he has to be on a racetrack racing. There is some risk that comes with that, but it’s to our benefit. It’s not only to our risk. I think staying sharp and enjoying yourself is the other component. He doesn’t have a lot of other hobbies. He loves to drive race cars. He loves to work on race cars, drive race cars, watch race cars, and that’s what he loves to do. When he has downtime that’s what he wants to do.”
Bell chases his fourth consecutive victory Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, a track that he feels owes him one after he was thwarted on strategy in the past two fall races there having led a combined 216 laps, finishing second in both events. Considering he’ll be on the dirt in the days beforehand, you wouldn’t bet against him.
OCEANPORT, N.J. — Journalism launched a dramatic rally to win the $1 million Haskell Invitational on Saturday at Monmouth Park.
It was Journalism’s first race since the Triple Crown. He was the only colt to contest all three legs, winning the Preakness while finishing second to Sovereignty in the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes.
Heavily favored at 2-5 odds, Journalism broke poorly under jockey Umberto Rispoli and wound up trailing the early leaders. He kicked into gear rounding the final turn to find Gosger and Goal Oriented locked in a dogfight for the lead. It appeared one of them would be the winner until Journalism roared down the center of the track to win by a half-length.
“You feel like you’re on a diesel,” Rispoli said. “He’s motoring and motoring. You never know when he’s going to take off. To do what he did today again, it’s unbelievable.”
Gosger held on for second, a neck ahead of Goal Oriented.
The Haskell victory was Journalism’s sixth in nine starts for Southern California-based trainer Michael McCarthy, and earned the colt a berth in the $7 million Breeders’ Cup Classic at Del Mar on Nov. 1.
DOVER, Del. — Chase Elliott took advantage of heavy rain at Dover Motor Speedway to earn the pole for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race.
Elliott and the rest of the field never got to turn a scheduled practice or qualifying lap on Saturday because of rain that pounded the concrete mile track. Dover is scheduled to hold its first July race since the track’s first one in 1969.
Elliott has two wins and 10 top-five finishes in 14 career races at Dover.
Logano is set to become the youngest driver in NASCAR history with 600 career starts.
Logano will be 35 years, 1 month, 26 days old when he hits No. 600 on Sunday at Dover Motor Speedway. He will top seven-time NASCAR champion and Hall of Famer Richard Petty by six months.
The midseason tournament that pays $1 million to the winner pits Ty Dillon vs. John Hunter Nemechek and Reddick vs. Gibbs in the head-to-head challenge at Dover.
The winners face off next week at Indianapolis. Reddick is the betting favorite to win it all, according to Sportsbook.
DOVER, Del. — NASCAR race team owner Denny Hamlin remained undeterred in the wake of another setback in court, vowing “all will be exposed” in the scheduled December trial as part of 23XI Racing’s federal antitrust suit against the auto racing series.
A federal judge on Thursday rejected a request from 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports to continue racing with charters while they battle NASCAR in court, meaning their six cars will race as open entries this weekend at Dover, next week at Indianapolis and perhaps longer than that in a move the teams say would put them at risk of going out of business.
U.S. District Judge Kenneth Bell denied the teams’ bid for a temporary restraining order, saying they will make races over the next couple of weeks and they won’t lose their drivers or sponsors before his decision on a preliminary injunction.
Bell left open the possibility of reconsidering his decision if things change over the next two weeks.
After this weekend, the cars affected may need to qualify on speed if 41 entries are listed – a possibility now that starting spots have opened.
The case has a Dec. 1 trial date, but the two teams are fighting to be recognized as chartered for the current season, which has 16 races left. A charter guarantees one of the 40 spots in the field each week, but also a base amount of money paid out each week.
“If you want answers, you want to understand why all this is happening, come Dec. 1, you’ll get the answers that you’re looking for,” Hamlin said Saturday at Dover Motor Speedway. “All will be exposed.”
23XI, which is co-owned by retired NBA great Michael Jordan, and FRM filed their federal suit against NASCAR last year after they were the only two organizations out of 15 to reject NASCAR’s extension offer on charters.
Jordan and FRM owner Bob Jenkins won an injunction to recognize 23XI and FRM as chartered for the season, but the ruling was overturned on appeal earlier this month, sending the case back to Bell.
Hamlin, a three-time Daytona 500 winner driving for Joe Gibbs Racing, co-owns 23XI with Jordan and said they were prepared to send Tyler Reddick, Bubba Wallace and Riley Herbst to the track each week as open teams. They sought the restraining order Monday, claiming that through discovery they learned NASCAR planned to immediately begin the process of selling the six charters which would put “plaintiffs in irreparable jeopardy of never getting their charters back and going out of business.”
Hamlin said none of the setbacks have made him second-guess the decision to file the lawsuit.
“Dec. 1 is all that matters. Mark your calendar,” Hamlin said. “I’d love to be doing other things. I’ve got a lot going on. When I get in the car (today), nothing else is going to matter other than that. I always give my team 100%. I always prepare whether I have side jobs, side hustles, more kids, that all matters, but I always give my team all the time that they need to make sure that when I step in, I’m 100% committed.”
Reddick, who has a clause that allows him to become a free agent if the team loses its charter, declined comment Saturday on all questions connected to his future and the lawsuit. Hamlin also declined to comment on Reddick’s future with 23XI Racing.
Reddick, one of four drivers left in NASCAR’s $1 million In-season Challenge, was last year’s regular-season champion and raced for the Cup Series championship in the season finale. But none of the six drivers affected by the court ruling are locked into this year’s playoffs.
Making the field won’t be an issue this weekend at Dover as fewer than the maximum 40 cars are entered. But should 41 cars show up anywhere this season, someone slow will be sent home and that means lost revenue and a lost chance to win points in the standings.
“Nothing changes from my end, obviously, and nothing changes from inside the shop,” Front Row Motorsports driver Zane Smith said. “There’s not typically even enough cars to worry about transferring in.”
Smith, 24th in the standings and someone who would likely need a win to qualify for NASCAR’s playoffs, said he stood behind Jenkins in his acrimonious legal fight that has loomed over the stock car series for months.
“I leave all that up to them,” Smith said, “but my job is to go get the 38 the best finish I can.”
