Christopher Bell building momentum for Xfinity playoff charge

Christopher Bell’s maiden voyage as a full-time NASCAR competitor ended in a smoldering heap in the 2016 Truck Series opener at Daytona International Speedway.

Three years removed from the frightening crash in which he barrel-rolled multiple times on the white flag lap, there’s nothing Bell would like more than to transform his Xfinity Series competition into a figurative version of a smoldering heap at Saturday’s Rhino Pro 300 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

While his place is secure for the championship run, momentum heading into the playoffs is always welcome. The regular-season finale on the LVMS oval will set the 12-driver field for the seven-race Xfinity Series championship scramble. With six wins in the first 25 races, Bell is projected as the top playoff seed ahead of the group of challengers trying to run him down.

The 24-year-old driver from Norman, Oklahoma, who came up through the open wheel dirt track ranks, won the first road course race of his budding NASCAR career behind the wheel of Joe Gibbs’ No. 20 Toyota at iconic Road America in Wisconsin on Aug. 24. It was his 14th career Xfinity victory.

Bell said he will be going for the win in the regular-season finale, mostly because that is the only way he knows to race.

Winning carries day

“I suck at points racing,” Bell said amid reports he will move up to drive the No. 95 Leavine Family Racing Toyota in next year’s Cup Series. “I am going to be out there trying to win races.

“My finishes have been top fives or wrecks (including one at Indianapolis last week), so we’ve won enough that we’ve got a lot of bonus (playoff) points that will hopefully carry us through.”

Four drivers have won multiple races in 2019, with Cole Custer (six wins) and regular-season points leader Tyler Reddick (four) joining Bell atop the list.

None of the trio posted an impressive result in the spring race at LVMS. Custer was ninth, Bell 13th and Reddick 14th in a race won by Cup Series interloper Kyle Busch of Las Vegas, for whom Bell drove in winning the 2017 Truck Series title.

Busch, who won’t be driving in the second Las Vegas Xfinity event of 2019, led a race-high 98 laps while Reddick was out front for 62 and Custer 37 before both fell back.

Las Vegas’ Noah Gragson is comfortably entrenched among the postseason hopefuls in projected eighth place and looms a dark horse to post his first Xfinity victory in Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s No. 9 Chevrolet after finishing third on his hometown oval in March. The Las Vegas youngster also finished third last week at Indianapolis behind Busch and Justin Allgaier.

Contact Ron Kantowski at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow @ronkantowski on Twitter.