Christopher Bell wins Homestead’s 4EVER 400, punches spot in Cup Series Championship 4

As the second stage of the 4EVER 400 came to an end at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Sunday, a message came over Christopher Bell’s radio.

“Hey, we need to try harder here,” crew chief Adam Stevens said.

Bell was in 22nd place at that point, near the back of the lead lap with about 100 laps left to race.

With a bite of sarcasm, Bell responded.

“OK,” he said. “I’ll start trying.”

Bell capitalized on a hectic final stage to win the 267-lap race and punch his ticket into the NASCAR Cup Series’ Championship 4.

Bell, the 28-year-old driver of the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 20 Toyota Camry, edged Ryan Blaney by 1.651 seconds to cap a caution-filled finish over the final 55 laps that knocked out three of the eight remaining playoff drivers down the stretch after a mostly drama-free start.

Tyler Reddick and William Byron — both also still in the playoff hunt along with Blaney — finished third and fourth.

“That race was a whirlwind,” Bell said on Victory Lane. “I was ready to throw in the towel after the second stage. I got really frustrated on the radio. ... [My crew] gave me what I needed. Whenever we got some clean air, this thing was really good.”

Sunday was Bell’s first win at Homestead. He finished 11th in 2022, 20th in 2021 and eighth in 2020. It was also his second win of the season and first since the playoffs began. His only other win this season came at Bristol on April 9.

Bell, who entered Sunday in fifth place in the playoff standings, joins Kyle Larson as the two drivers to lock in their spots in the four-team championship field with one race left to go in the Round of 8. Larson secured his spot with a win last week in Las Vegas.

That leaves six playoff drivers competing for two playoff spots, both of which will be decided next weekend at Martinsville Speedway’s Xfinity 500 before the championship on Nov. 5 at Phoenix Raceway. Denny Hamlin, Martin Truex Jr. and Chris Buescher are the other three still in the playoffs in the Round of 8.

The race was mostly clean until Lap 212, when the first of three cautions set up a wild and frantic finish.

It started when Larson collided with the sand barrels and clipped Blaney while entering pit road, which ultimately brought out the red flag with 51 laps to go and ended Larson’s race. Larson finished 34th.

“I hate it for Ryan more than anything,” Larson said in an interview on the NBC broadcast after he exited the infield care center. “He was doing a super good job out front and his team’s been doing a really good job out front and his team’s been doing a really good job throughout the playoffs. That was not my intention. I was just trying to get as close to his back bumper as I could to hopefully have a good cycle and have a better pit stop, come out in front of him and control the race. Just up more with myself. Even if he did slow down early, I still should have not pushed that hard. That’s a bummer.”

On the NBC broadcast, Blaney’s crew chief Jonathan Hassler said Blaney’s car sustained some damage on the right rear but “it’s nothing we’re overly concerned about.”

After a 12-and-a-half minute delay under the red flag, the race resumed on Lap 221 — the first green-flag lap in which Bell was in a top-five position — before quickly going back under caution due to a wreck involving Ross Chastain, John Hunter Nemechek and JJ Yeley on the backstretch.

And then on Lap 235, Hamlin hit the wall on Turn 1 for the third caution in a 24-lap span. His race ended there, in 30th place. Truex also exited the race during the caution and finished 29th.

That left Byron, Bell, Blaney and Reddick in a four-driver race at the top of the field over the final 20-plus laps.

Bell overtook Byron on Lap 252 and cruised for the final 16 laps.

When asked if he thought the win was possible, Bell quickly quipped “Heck no.”

“I mean, I can’t even say I was thinking about a win at any point in the day except the last maybe 10 laps,” Bell said. “It was just insane. ... A couple good adjustments [on pit road] and a big, big break with the yellow flag for sure. If that yellow flag doesn’t happen, then I certainly don’t win and I probably don’t even sniff the top 10, so we did catch a huge break in the third stage.”

Larson had run a pretty sound race until the collision entering pit road that ended his race. He won a very mellow first stage, taking the lead on Lap 54 and holding on down the stretch of the stage despite his car feeling tight. The 80-lap stage ended under caution after Ricky Stenhouse Jr. spun out on Lap 76. Bell was in ninth at this point.

It was more Larson dominance in Stage 2 until the end of the 85-lap section. Larson led 69 of the first 81 laps in that phase before Blaney overtook him on Lap 162 to take the stage. Bell was in 22nd and at that point received the message from his crew chief — and gave his message back.

“It felt like home,” Stevens said with a laugh. “Sometimes he lets a little bit of emotion out and sometimes you need to. I scream my full head off on the box sometimes and don’t keep the mic. You’ve got to let it out. He was in a bad spot. We put him in a bad spot. He was driving his pants off and I was just trying to give him information to where the leader was so he didn’t lose sight of it.”

Added Bell: “That was just me boiling over with frustration and I try not to do that. I tried to keep my temper as controlled as I could, but in that moment, I did smart off to him.”

In the end, it worked out.

Blaney led 45 of the first 47 laps of the final stage before the incident with Larson entering pit road and chaos ensued to set up the eventful finish that Bell capitalized on down the stretch.

“This is better than a dream come true,” Bell said.

This and that

▪ Chris Buescher, the final driver still in the playoff hunt, struggled all race. He finished 21st.

▪ Kevin Harvick, who is retiring at the end of this season after 23 seasons in the NASCAR Cup Series, finished 11th. Harvick was the Cup Series champion in 2014 and finished in the top three seven other times in his career (runner-up in 2015; third in 2010, 2011, 2013, 2017, 2018 and 2019).

▪ Grammy Award-winning recording artist Pitbull, who is the co-owner of the Trackhouse Racing team that fields Cup Series drivers Ross Chastain and Daniel Suarez, served as the ceremonial pace car driver for the race Sunday.