By Caleb Whisler, Staff Writer
In his first time in a NASCAR XFINITY Series car at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Christopher Bell was able to run with the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series drivers throughout the entire event.
Bell has been on the 1.54-mile in a NASCAR Camping World Truck Series ride with Kyle Busch Motorsports, but has never been in the car for a XFINITY. In January, Bell participated in a rookie test. Bell attributed that test and his Truck experience for how he ran today.
“Well it’s huge. This place is really hard to get around. Between all my different teams that I’ve driven for at Kyle Busch Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing, I have been able to test here twice, have done two Truck Series races and now an Xfinity Series race. Out of the NASCAR tracks, this is probably where I have the most laps at. It definitely helped me today. It’s a ton of fun,” Bell stated.
Despite finishing in the third position, Bell was bummed about his run, but believes that he will be content with the finish on Sunday
“I don’t know. I am a little bit bummed right now but I will probably wake tomorrow and be pretty happy with it,” Bell continued.
“Our Ruud Camry was fast but I wasn’t good enough to run with the 98 (Harvick). And I don’t know if I put myself up too fast on the green flag pit stop that the 22 (Logano) was able to get by me late in the race. I don’t know what I missed on but our guys brought a really fast Camry and we’ll try to get them in Vegas next week.”
Bell heads to Las Vegas Motor Speedway sitting sixth in the points standing only 31 points behind Elliott Sadler.