Toyota Racing – Christopher Bell
NASCAR Xfinity Series (NXS)
Bristol Motor Speedway – August 16, 2018
Joe Gibbs Racing driver Christopher Bell was made available to the media at Bristol Motor Speedway:
CHRISTOPHER BELL, No. 20 Rheem Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
What do you think about racing at Bristol Motor Speedway?
“For me, I love Bristol – it’s one of my favorite race tracks that we go to throughout the course of the year. I haven’t had any success here, but it’s always a really fun race track and driving for Joe Gibbs Racing, I’ve got really fast race cars. Hopefully, we can turn that around this weekend.”
Is it wise to give advice about this race track to your competitors?
“All three of us are in a hell of a points battle right now. The good news is that we’re all buddies and we’re all friends. What I tell him, his car is totally different than what my car is doing.”
Is going to the 95 Cup car an option for 2019?
“That was all news to me. Right now I’ve got a great group of people and getting to drive for all of our partners at Ruud and Rheem, GameStop and I’ve got great race cars at Joe Gibbs Racing and Toyota support. Right now, that’s the only thing I’ve got is that I’m finishing out this year and then next year I’m going for the Xfinity championship again with all of our same partners. I’m proud to represent Rheem, Ruud, GameStop, Joe Gibbs Racing, Toyota and all of the above.”
What has Jack Irving meant to your career?
“Old Daddy Jack (Irving), he’s the guy who got me started for sure. What’s really interesting is that I didn’t really meet Jack until a while later – all of my connections were David Wilson and Tyler Gibbs and I got introduced to Jack a little later. Jack got put in charge of the driver development deal and he’s the one that has given me or has always been my contact at Toyota. I call him Daddy Jack because he’s been nothing but a father figure to me. It’s really cool to have someone that believes in you as much as he does. It’s an honor to be able to continue to drive for the entire Toyota Racing Development group.”
How important is the Toyota development program to the sport as a whole?
“What’s really cool is that you – especially on the dirt side between (Kyle) Larson and myself and now Logan Seavey has run a truck race – you get all of these kids that are in the lower forms of motorsports and there for a while it kind of seemed hopeless to get to NASCAR and now that avenue is open. It’s open and everyone sees it. Every kid talks about Toyota. That’s where they want to be. They want to be part of the Toyota driver development program, so it’s really special to see that and see how everybody wants to be there. That seems to be the clearest way to get up to our level right now and they’re really doing a great job of that.”
How important are the Playoff bonus points?
“That’s one thing that I think NASCAR has done an excellent job at is putting emphasis on the bonus points. I remember me and Cole (Custer) at Iowa the last time – we were racing our butts off for that stage win. I think I ended up getting them and I crossed the checkered flag and I was on there screaming like ‘give me that bonus point, man’. Those bonus points are everything. I learned last year, thankfully driving for Kyle Busch Motorsports, we won five races and we won the regular-season championship and once the playoffs started, we basically cruised to Homestead. Luckily we didn’t have an incident. Having those bonus points is just excellent. Daniel (Hemric) on the other hand had to work for it last year.”
When did you find out you were racing a Tundra this weekend and how does it feel to be back with KBM?
“It was yesterday that I found out. It all came up pretty quick. First off, it sucks that the situation arose where Harrison (Burton)’s not able to be here and race, so hopefully we can go out and support his sponsors good and run good for Kyle Busch Motorsports, the company, and then Harrison can get back in next week. It’s fun to be in the truck series, especially driving for that group of people. I’ve never driver for Mike Hillman, the crew chief, but our Hunt Brothers Tundra seems to be pretty good right now. They’ve done a really good job and it’s a lot of fun to be able to race, but wish he was racing.”
