Lightning Strikes Twice for Bell

By: Derek Pierce

A track that is on the verge of being taken off the schedule, just delivered a near perfect race. Drama, stories, battles, and an amazing finish throughout the entire day made this one of the best road course races the Next Gen car has ever given us and could end up being the best race of the year. 

Ringing the Bell on the Finish

You really can't ask for a better finish than what we saw at COTA. An incident between Austin Dillon and Denny Hamlin brought out the caution late in the race, meaning we'd have a 14-lap run to the finish. Just before the caution came out, everyone went through the pit cycle which saw Christopher Bell get a three-lap tire advantage over race leader, Kyle Busch, and Shane Van Gisbergen got another two-lap advantage on Bell. On the restart it would line up with Busch and William Byron on the front row, Bell and AJ Allmendinger in row two, and Van Gisbergen and Tyler Reddick in the third row. All six of these drivers at one point either had the lead or were in position to fight for it. With the tire strategies, everything shaped up for an all-time type of finish.

On the restart, as he did all day, Van Gisbergen lost multiple spots and even fell outside of the top 10, which essentially took him out of contention. Meanwhile, Bell was charging hard at Busch, but the veteran was defending him hard with the will of snapping his 59-race winless streak. Byron managed about a second worth of a gap between the leaders and Reddick was a second a half behind Byron.

With nine to go Bell tries to make a late dive bomb on Busch into turn-1, but Busch blocked it off causing Bell to fall back to Byron. He manages to retain 2nd place and continue chasing Busch. When Bell manages to get side-by-side with Busch, they make seemingly small contact that allowed Busch to retain the lead, but it ended up causing some sort of issue within the wheel well and taking a lot of speed out of his car. This allows Bell to pass for the lead quickly followed by Byron and Reddick. 

As Bell makes the pass for the lead, Byron gets to his inside where Bell cuts him off into the corner. In most instances, this would've ended with Bell going for a spin and we once again get a battle between Byron and Reddick at this track. Instead, Byron backed out of it to not wreck Bell, and this was the story of the rest of the race. Multiple times Byron got the run to Bell's rear bumper but chose to keep the battle clean and just didn't have enough to make a strong enough move to get around Bell. 

Last year, Bell's team made the call to pit later than the other leaders to have a tire advantage at the end of the race. A seemingly dumb move because of all the time that is lost running on old tires that fell just short a year ago was the winning move for that team on Sunday. Busch had incredible speed and the only way to pass him was going to be finding them in a disadvantaged situation. They put themselves in position to do just that and are now back-to-back winners heading into another track they've shown great speed.

The Phenom's not so Phenomenal Debut

We can't talk about the drivers that showed great speed on Sunday without talking about Connor Zilisch. An incident in the first turn of the race between Ross Chastain and Chase Elliott caused a huge scuffle at the top of the hill that resulted in Zilisch having a flat tire. Being mired to last place for all of the first stage, stage two was going to be where we saw how fast this kid really was. 

He made his way all the way from dead last to 14th in the 25-lap stage alone and people were starting to notice how much of a race winning contender he could end up being in this race. With the start of the final stage, many were watching to see how far up the order he could make it, but that was a short-lived watch.

Five laps in, Zilisch had made it up to 12th before his teammate, Daniel Suarez, went spinning. This spin kicked up dust and dirt that created a blind track. To avoid the wreck, Zilisch powered as far to the outside of the track as he could without getting in the grass, but it wasn't enough. After he spun, Suarez let the car roll further off track to stay out of the way and combine that with Zilisch gassing the car up to get by as soon as possible, it ended in the worst result. The two made heavy contact which sent Zilisch into the tire barrier and ended both of their races. 

Regardless of the result, there was a lot to be impressed about Zilisch in his debut. Not only did he show the amazing speed to be able to recover so well in a car and track he's unfamiliar with, but he showed off great maturity which is something a lot of the young guys learn throughout their years in the Cup Series. 

When he was all the way in last, he didn't admit defeat and just accept that his debut was a stinker and just ride around in the back. He took care of the car to make it to the next stage which would allow him to get grouped back up with everyone else where he carefully charged through the field, making little to no contact with anyone. In the Xfinity race on Saturday, we saw a moment of aggression taking over the maturity and he made needless contact to try to get back to the front of the field that was close to ending his race when he was by far the dominant car. That wasn't the case on Sunday and it put a lot of people on notice. 

The future is extremely bright for Zilisch and it's not just road courses he's good at. He's just as competitive on ovals and has nothing but time to develop and hone his craft. It's looking likely that he'll be taking over the 99 next year, with the departure of Pitbull from the team and Suarez's general lack of performance. He truly is something special.

Breaking The Streak

I mentioned it earlier, but Kyle Busch's winless streak has extended even further. It seems like no matter how much speed this team shows, they just aren't able to get it done. So many races last year it seemed like it was going to happen, but they all ended in the most heartbreaking ways. 

This year might go the same way for him, unfortunately. The worst thing about it, is that there isn't really anyone to blame for not getting in victory lane. Especially at COTA, this team executed everything perfectly. Made adjustments to keep up with the track, were actually quick enough to lead the most laps, and made no mistakes on track or pit road. It simply came down to a risky strategy play of losing short term track position to get a late tire advantage that paid off with assistance of the late caution.

Maybe, just maybe, Busch holds on to win the race if the caution doesn't come out. Five seconds is time that can be made up in the nineteen laps before the caution came out, but it might've still been questionable. The caution threw it out the window however by bringing them all together and allowing Bell to easily get around Byron without having to make a pass on track. 

Race Review

Overall, this race was genuinely one of the best we've seen with the Next Gen car in general, and the best road course race with this car so far. It really seemed like hope was lost with how bad they were in 2022 and 2023, but the last two years they have drastically improved.

The surface lacked so much grip that the cars were able to slide and whip around each corner and really made the drivers show off their car control. On top of that, Goodyear brought an amazing tire that wore out quickly and made the cars even harder to drive. These two factors made the best rise to the lead of the race, no matter where they started and created a lot of comers and goers. That is what makes a good race and that is what we saw all day. 

Reddick was the fastest on the short run, Van Gisbergen was the fastest on the long run, Busch was the all-around quickest letting him lead so much, Byron was hovering around the leaders all race, and Bell played the strategy game to take it at the end. So much was happening just off of pure racing, no chaos apart from the incident in the first turn.

There truly was just about nothing to hate about this race, and if you are one of the people that hated it, you better come up with a good reason or just stop watching the sport. That was something I would want to watch every single week and will be going in my list of 10/10 races.