FORT WORTH, Texas — In a racing career that began when he was six, Christopher Bell has become one of the most versatile and winning drivers in North America, with the 30-year-old tallying victories across USAC, the World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series, ARCA and each of NASCAR’s three national series.
This weekend in Texas, Bell’s versatility will be on full display. On Thursday night at The Dirt Track at Texas Motor Speedway, Bell will make his Kubota High Limit Racing debut when he climbs behind the wheel of the famed No. 69k 410 winged sprint car for team owner and National Sprint Car Hall of Famer Don Kreitz, Jr.
Bell will drive the car again on Friday night at Rocket Raceway Park in Petty, Texas, in the POWRi Elite Outlaw 410 Sprint Car Series.
After that, Bell will make the 114-mile trek back to Texas Motor Speedway so he can return to his day job – driving the No. 20 Interstate Batteries Toyota Camry XSE for Joe Gibbs Racing in the NASCAR Cup Series.
It’s the kind of schedule that makes other racers green with envy, not only because Bell will compete at the highest level in two very different racing disciplines, but because he will do it in the vibrant green colors of longtime motorsports supporter Interstate Batteries.
The leading replacement battery brand in the United States will be the primary partner on Bell’s sprint car and on his No. 20 Toyota in the Würth 400 presented by LIQUI MOLY at the 1.5-mile Texas oval.
“Racers race, and the more you race, the better you are,” said Bell, who believes that being in race shape brings a heightened level of physical fitness to his craft. “You can go lift weights and run as much as you want, but being in that racing environment and focusing on the task at hand, it’s different – a lot different – and there’s no way you can prepare for it other than doing it.”
Bell has been doing it for a while, and he’s got the hardware to prove it. Twenty-nine USAC wins and the 2013 USAC National Midget championship. Six World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series wins. Three ARCA wins. Seven NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series wins and the 2017 title. Nineteen NASCAR Xfinity Series wins.
Twelve NASCAR Cup Series wins, including a run of three straight earlier this year that has made Bell the winningest Cup Series driver so far this season.
Yet Bell remains hungry, and in addition to collecting trophies from the two dirt tracks he will visit this week, Bell wants the Würth 400 trophy on Sunday. A native of Norman, Oklahoma, Bell considers Texas his home track, a feeling he shares with Dallas-based Interstate Batteries.
“This is a big deal,” Bell said. “It’s a big race weekend for myself, my family and for Interstate Batteries. I would love nothing more than to get that first Texas Cup Series victory.”
The Würth 400 will be Bell’s seventh career Cup Series start at Texas. His six prior starts have yielded feast-or-famine results with three finishes of fourth or better coupled with three other results outside the top-15.
“Texas, that one’s a tough cookie, man. It’s just a very difficult track because of the way it’s shaped and the characteristics of it,” Bell said. “In turns three and four, there’s this one big bump, and it’s always been my Achilles’ heel. But over in turns one and two, you need your car to be really low to the ground. It’s a slower corner and there’s not as much load on the car.
“Texas is a place of compromising. You need to make sure you get your car to load in (turns) one and two so it carries speed all the way through the corner. But then when you get to (turns) three and four, it’s a lot faster, and you’ve got to be able to manage that big bump.”
Bell has found that perfect compromise twice before at Texas. He won an Xfinity Series race at the track in November 2019 by leading four times for a race-high 101 laps, and a Craftsman Truck Series race in June 2017 by leading twice for a race-high 92 laps. His sprint car background helped him each time.
“You’re very rarely going to have a perfect car,” Bell said. “It’s the guys who can adapt to that the best and figure out how, if your car’s loose or if it’s tight, to run different lines and manipulate your car to do certain things. That’s all stuff that dirt track racing teaches you really well.”
Rooted in the practical element of sprint car racing is passion.
“Sprint car racing is just so real and raw and true. You can’t fake it,” Bell said. “You’ve got to qualify well and you’ve got to race well. There are no pit stops. It’s just the driver and the car once it’s on the track. You still have a team. You have a crew chief and mechanics who work on the car, but it’s all really in your hands, and you can’t fake your way around a sprint car, that’s for sure.”
Bell can, however, be strategic when it comes to racing sprint cars. As fun as dirt tracks are for the sixth-year Cup Series driver, competing at stock car racing’s highest level in his No. 20 Interstate Batteries Toyota remains the priority.
Bell is not running the second night of the Kubota High Limit Racing event on Saturday at The Dirt Track. Instead, Daryn Pittman, the 2013 World of Outlaws champion, will drive the No. 69k Interstate Batteries machine.
“I think it’s smart to run the sprint car Thursday and Friday, and then we’ll have Cup practice and qualifying on Saturday and we’ll be strictly focused on that,” Bell said. “I don’t want to interrupt my feel, my rhythm, when I get in the Cup car, and I want to make the most out of Sunday.”
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