With four fresh tires at the end of the race to two for Brad Keselowski, Bell held off the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series regular to capture the triumph.
“The better tires, they didn’t hurt us that’s for sure,” said Bell from victory lane. “Jason (Ratcliff, crew chief) was able to put four on there and, man, we got going there that long green flag run and I was getting really nervous because I didn’t have a tach (tachometer), so I didn’t really know how I was going to get down pit road, but luckily I’ve got the best spotter on the roof, man, and Tony (Hirschman) was able to kind of guide me.”
Without his tachometer, Bell was able to guide his Camry down pit road for tire without garnering a penalty each time. Bell started second and led the field three times for a race-high 93 laps (of 200) to finish first. He also won the race’s first stage and was eighth at the conclusion of the second stage.
With his performance, Bell jumped to second in the NXS point standings and leads the Playoff points with 18 marks to eight for his next-closest competitor.
Bell now has three victories in his first, full-time season at the NXS level.
Bell’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammates also finished in the top-10 overall with Connecticut-native Ryan Preece in third and Brandon Jones in sixth.
Preece, a native of nearby Connecticut that often competes at New Hampshire, finished second on the 1.058-mile track in 2017 before finishing third this year. The part-time NXS competitor now has seven top-five results in nine starts over two years for Joe Gibbs Racing.
“[Beating Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski in back to back weeks is] pretty special. I never dreamed I would be here at Joe Gibbs Racing. I never dreamed I’d be racing in the NASCAR Xfinity Series honestly, but, man, I’m just proud of this entire group at Joe Gibbs Racing. This No. 20 team works their butts of and really happy for all of our partners at Rheem, Ruud, GameStop, Toyota, obviously everyone at TRD (Toyota Racing Development) and bottom line I’m really thankful for Jack Irving (director of Team & Support Service for TRD, U.S.A.), Tyler Gibbs (senior vice president and GM for TRD, U.S.A.), Pete Willoughby, Keith Kunz (team owner of Keith Kunz Motorsports). Those guys are the ones that took – put their neck out on the line – so those guys right there put their neck out on the line for me and here I am today.” – Christopher Bell, driver of the No. 20 Rheem Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
“Probably just be a little looser. You know, all day yesterday we fought being too loose and we kept tightening it up and, you know, as soon as I went out there in the modified, I’m like, ‘Man, this track is totally different,’ so I think if we left it alone maybe, but, you know, these guys that are on this team – the 18, Eric Phillips (crew chief), Chris Gabehart was my crew chief last year – they do a great job making me look good, so one day hopefully I can to get victory lane for New England.” – Ryan Preece, driver of the No. 18 Falmouth Ready Mix Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
“A decent day – kind of top-10 most of the afternoon. Two hundred laps here at Loudon (New Hampshire), I think we had a phenomenal day here. This was probably one of our worst tracks coming in to the season this year and we capitalized on today and made a sixth-place finish out of it, so I think we can run sixth here than we can definitely get us a win at some tracks we are really strong at.” – Brandon Jones, driver of the No. 19 XYO Networks Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing