From dirt-track roots, Christopher Bell, Tyler Reddick excelling in NASCAR Cup Series

Tyler Reddick can’t recall exactly how old he was the first time he heard Christopher Bell’s name.

“I was 10 or 11, maybe younger,” Reddick said. “I was lying about my age back then. I can’t remember how old I was.”

Bell would’ve been 11 or 12 at the time, still living in his hometown of Norman and trying to make a name for himself racing open-wheel micro sprint cars on dirt tracks all over Oklahoma.

Reddick grew up in Corning, California, which is less than two hours north of Sacramento and more than 1,700 miles west of any racetrack Bell would’ve been running back then. Yet Reddick was already touring the country, racing anywhere they’d let a fourth-grader — or a fourth-grader claiming to be 15 — behind the wheel.

That included stops at I-44 Speedway in south Oklahoma City and Port City Raceway in Tulsa, where the pre-teen prodigies first learned of each other.

“I definitely remember him being around,” said Bell, now 27. “I think we were in different divisions at the time, so I didn’t race directly against him, but I remember him coming to my home track.”

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Fifteen years and thousands of laps later, Bell and Reddick can’t get away from each other.

They’ll be on the track together Sunday during the Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 500, set for a 2:30 p.m. start at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth. It’s the first race in the NASCAR Cup Series playoff round of 12.

Beginning with their dirt-track roots, the careers of Bell and Reddick have long intertwined leading up to their near-simultaneous emergence as young NASCAR stars.

They raced against each other in the Camping World Truck Series in 2015-16, then again in the Xfinity Series in 2018-19 before making the jump to full-time Cup status together in 2020.

Bell won the Truck Series championship in 2017 and Reddick took the Xfinity title the next two years.

They each have two career Cup wins and, until last week, they were battling it out in the playoffs for stock car racing’s grandest prize.

When the playoff field was cut from 16 drivers to 12 after last Sunday’s race at Bristol Motor Speedway, Bell survived, but Reddick didn’t.

Bell enters the weekend tied for sixth in points, 27 back of leader Chase Elliott. Bell needs to stay in the top eight or win one of the next three races to advance to the third round of the playoffs.

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With races at less-traditional tracks — Talladega Superspeedway and the Charlotte Roval road course — up next, Texas is pivotal.

“It’s gonna be very, very important to get out of Texas with as many points as we can,” Bell said. “And the winner is gonna be a very happy camper.”

Tied with Bell is Denny Hamlin, who will be 42 in November. Hamlin made his Cup Series debut in 2005, about the time Bell and Reddick were turning laps as tweens at I-44 Speedway.

Kevin Harvick, who will be 47 in December, was eliminated from the playoffs with Reddick last week. Harvick’s Cup debut was in 2001, when Bell was a second-grader and Reddick in kindergarten — nowhere near dreaming of future NASCAR glory.

Yet now, the young drivers find themselves competing at the highest level against contemporary heroes of the sport.

“That’s what I absolutely love about motorsports,” Bell said. “You have so many drivers in different stages of life that are all competing against each other. You look at football or basketball, for the most part, everyone is in that same age group. And once you get older, you get to where you’re not as good as the younger guys. But motorsports is far from that. The older you get, in some ways, the better you get.

“You can have 18- or 20-year-old kids competing against 50-year-old men, and either one of them can win on any given day.”

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Auto Trader EchoPark Automotive 500

2:30 p.m. Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth (USA Network)

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: NASCAR Cup Series: Christopher Bell eyes playoff win at Texas