Bell sees nothing wrong with battle for All-Star win with Logano

Christopher Bell did not see anything egregious about how the way in which he passed Joey Logano to win the NASCAR All-Star Race.

Bell made the winning pass with nine laps to go having worked Logano over for multiple laps, working both to the inside and outside of the Team Penske driver. When he finally got back to the inside of Logano, Bell ran him hard and up the track in Turns 3 and 4 to complete the pass.

“Joey was frustrated?” Bell repeated when informed about Logano’s comments in his winner’s press conference. “He was frustrated? That is interesting. I genuinely would not have guessed that.

“Well, I had got to him a couple of times before and he made it very difficult on me, as he should, and I got my run and I took the moment, as I should. I don’t think that I didn’t anything that Joey has not done, and I’ve seen Joey do much worse. So, we will continue on.”

Bell was at a tire advantage, having pitted under the final caution, which flew on lap 216. Logano, meanwhile, was on older tires as one of five drivers who had stayed on track. The race restarted for the final time with 28 laps to go.

The restart put Logano on the outside of the front row while Bell restarted on the inside of the third row. He made it to second position with 24 laps to go, and was quickly on Logano’s bumper since he had been unable to gap the field.

“It is what it is,” Logano said. “He did it good enough that I couldn’t get back to him because I was going to show him what fair was, but I just couldn’t get there. I just couldn’t get there with the tires. I couldn’t get away fast enough. It took me six or seven laps after that restart to get rolling again, and then he passed too many cars there in the first couple laps, and then he was there.”

Logano felt he did all he could to play defense while he waited for his rear tires to come in. But it took too long to happen, and Bell had driven away.

“Whenever I got into second place, I really closed the gap on him quickly, and I thought that it was going to be a pretty easy pass,” Bell explained of his approach and pass. “Then whenever I got to him, he changed his line around to take my air away and take my line away, and it worked. I got really loose on the outside of him in (Turns) 3 and 4, he got away, he changed his line up to block my line, and it hurt my pace for a while. So, I thought I would be able to get back to him, and I had to regroup for a minute, and then whenever I did get back to him, he was just doing a great job of defensive driving.

“Throughout the garage, I think Joey and his spotter (Coleman Pressley) are probably the most respected group or the best group in the garage at defensive driving, aero blocking, and stuff like that. He did everything that he could do to keep me behind him with my tire advantage; I was a little bit faster than he and was able to generate the run. Yeah, I knew once I got a position on him, I had to take it at that moment to win the race, and that’s what I did.”