Rain or shine, Christopher Bell shows mettle in winning USA TODAY 301 NASCAR race
LOUDON, N.H. — Christopher Bell had to overcome a lot on Sunday. He had to beat the rain. He had to beat the darkness. And, of course, he had to beat the field.
The 29-year-old bested each challenge en route to his overtime win at the 2024 USA TODAY 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Chase Brisco finished second and Kyle Larson came in third.
New Hampshire's victory lane has become a familiar place for Bell, who also won Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race for the weekend sweep of the "Magic Mile." Bell has now won twice in five career starts in New Hampshire.
"This track has so much character," Adam Stevens, Bell's crew chief at Joe Gibbs Racing, said. "It really tasks the driver with being willing and able to move around and find that little bit of grip as the line moves and the rubber goes down."
Bell was a contender from the jump of Sunday’s marathon race that lasted more than six hours including delays. He won the first stage of the race after overtaking polesitter Chase Elliott on lap 43 and stayed in contention until heavy rain brought things to a halt with less than 90 laps to go.
Lightning in the area as well as a tornado watch kept the action suspended for two hours and 14 minutes until NASCAR decided to dry the track and restart the race with cars using wet-weather tires.
Several of the race’s astounding 14 cautions occurred after the wet restart with cars struggling to find grip and temperature balance in the tires. Still, Bell's No. 20 Toyota prevailed even as darkness enveloped the track during the race’s final few laps that bled into the 8 p.m. ET hour.
"What race do we want to talk about? Loudon dry or Loudon wet?" Bell said. "It was a tale of two different events. In the dry, we started off really well. When the wet came, we might as well have been somewhere completely different.
"It was very, very dark. It was creeping up to be too dark to race."
Three-time New Hampshire winner Denny Hamlin won the second stage but wound up finishing 24th. He is just one win shy of tying Jeff Burton and Kevin Harvick for most Cup Series wins at New Hampshire all time.
It looked as though Tyler Reddick might steal the win after a gutsy strategy call. Sitting in 14th place after the completion of stage 2, Reddick’s team decided not to make a pit stop and instead prioritized track position with a band of severe rain and thunderstorms approaching the track. That left Reddick in the lead when the race was suspended and in serious doubt of resuming due to severe weather.
Martin Truex Jr., who has announced that 2024 will be his final season as a full-time driver, may have had the most up-and-down race.
After momentarily leading the race, Truex’s No. 19 Toyota suffered a botched pit stop and restarted 26th before contact with Brad Keselowski early in the third stage. But the defending race winner and 2017 NASCAR Cup Series champion rebounded following the rain delay on wet tires to finish ninth.