Christopher Bell, driver of the No. 20 DeWalt Toyota, celebrates in victory lane after winning the NASCAR Cup Series Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway on September 13, 2025 in Bristol, Tennessee. (Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images)
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Christopher Bell didn’t just score a win at Bristol Motor Speedway this weekend. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver solidified himself as a championship-caliber racer once again.
Bell, who won three straight races at Atlanta, Circuit of the Americas and Phoenix earlier this year, had gone winless up until this past weekend. Nonetheless, he has been a model of consistency throughout the year, tied for a series-high 16 top 10s (with Ryan Blaney and Kyle Larson).
“It’s just all the Toyotas are super fast right now,” Bell said in a post-race press conference. “I think I said it last week in my post-race interview that this is the best race cars I’ve had to drive in the Cup Series compared to the competition in my career. I think it goes from Joe Gibbs Racing to 23XI. They’ve been really good, even the Legacy cars have had an amazing performance the last couple weeks.
“We are in a really good spot right now, we as in the Toyota group, and specifically Joe Gibbs Racing. But we’ve got a long way to go to get to Phoenix and it’s going to be a hard road, and everybody knows that. Winning is literally everything. That’s what it’s all about.”
Bell has a career-high four wins this season. He qualified for the Championship 4 in 2022 and 2023. Last year, he would have qualified for the Championship 4, but he was disqualified for riding the wall at Martinsville in the cutoff race.
“It’s a huge morale boost for the team and myself as a driver,” Bell said. “But certainly what we experienced tonight will mean nothing on what we have for the rest of the year. This race is completely unique to itself the way that the tires behaved and the race played out, the strategy calls. You cannot take anything from this and apply it to anywhere else. Winning is very important in this sport, and it feels good to get another one.”
All of Joe Gibbs Racing is red hot right now. Chase Briscoe led over 300 laps in the Southern 500, and Denny Hamlin was victorious at Gateway, his fifth win of the year. And even though Ty Gibbs has not won a race, he led 201 laps at Bristol.