Bell 'dropped the ball' and gave away Nashville Cup win

Christopher Bell did not win Sunday night at Nashville Superspeedway, and that was no one’s fault but the guy behind the wheel.

Or so said that guy.

“I didn’t need anything [at the end],” Bell said. “My car was amazing, had the right strategy, the right everything, and I just did not win the race. I didn’t do a good job of driving, and I got no one to blame but myself.”

Bell came up short to Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin when the victory was decided in a four-lap sprint to the finish. The leader on the restart was Bell. Initially pushed clear by Hamlin, it was a brief respite as Hamlin pulled even by the exit of Turn 2, and the fight was on.

The two stayed side by side until they took the white flag. Chase Briscoe, a third Gibbs driver, then took his run and made it three-wide. Bell drove deep into the corner and dispatched of Briscoe, but Hamlin got another run on the inside and cleared Bell by the exit of Turn 2. It ended up being the winning pass.

“I needed not to let Denny get beside me on the restart,” said Bell in hindsight. “I was focused on getting clear into [Turn] 1, and I opened the door, and Denny got right beside me. Then it was a drag race from there.”

Bell thought he had the leveraged position by being on the outside of the teammate battle with Hamlin. But the longer they fought, and the harder Hamlin ran Bell up the track, the more it brought Briscoe into the fight. But then what Bell thought was going to happen — that Briscoe would give him a push — didn’t materialize when Briscoe popped out to his outside.

“I just didn’t get it done,” Bell reiterated. “That’s all there is to it.”

It was the second straight week that Bell came up short while fighting for the win. There have also been races where circumstances beyond his control have hindered his No. 20 team. Bell, who has been winless since last September, wasn’t interested in any excuses.

But why did this one feel worse?

“Because there’s nothing … there is nobody to blame, no circumstances,” he said. “It was all completely in my hands, and I dropped the ball. There is literally nobody who had anything to do with losing the race except me, and it sucks.”