BELL FINISHES SECOND IN VEGAS
Pole winner Bell leads race-high 155 laps, comes up just short after late charge through field
LAS VEGAS (October 20, 2024) – Christopher Bell won the pole, led 155 of 267 laps and finished second after charging through the field late in the running of the NASCAR Cup Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Sunday evening. Bell led four Toyotas in the top-10 finishers with Martin Truex Jr. in sixth, fellow Playoff driver Denny Hamlin coming home in eighth and John Hunter Nemechek scoring a solid ninth-place finish.
The third Toyota Playoff driver, Tyler Reddick, led nine laps and won the first stage before being involved in an early stage two incident.
With the finish, Christopher Bell leads the overall standings and is second in the Playoff rankings. He is 42 points above the cutline. Denny Hamlin moved up to fifth. The Virginia-native is now 27 points out. Tyler Reddick ranks sixth, 30 points below the cutline.
Toyota Post-Race Recap
NASCAR Cup Series (NCS)
Las Vegas Motor Speedway
Race 33 of 36 – 267 Laps, 400.5 Miles
TOYOTA FINISHING POSITIONS
1st, Joey Logano*
2nd, CHRISTOPHER BELL
3rd, Daniel Suarez*
4th, William Bryon*
5th, Alex Bowman*
6th, MARTIN TRUEX JR.
8th, DENNY HAMLIN
9th, JOHN HUNTER NEMECHEK
12th, BUBBA WALLACE
25th, ERIK JONES
28th, JIMMIE JOHNSON
30th, TY GIBBS
35th, TYLER REDDICK
*non-Toyota driver
TOYOTA QUOTES
CHRISTOPHER BELL, No. 20 Rheem Toyota Camry XSE, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 2nd
How do you come to terms with how that race played out?
“I don’t know. I don’t know, and I don’t think I’ve come to terms with it yet. Just a bummer. Everyone on this team did everything perfect today. This thing was obviously on rails, the pit crew did an amazing job, Adam (Stevens, crew chief) called an amazing race. We did everything we needed to put the Rheem Camry into victory lane, and unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be today.”
How do you use this to fuel you next weekend in Homestead?
“It is a whole new race next week. This track means nothing for next week, and fortunately, we were able to go and win in Homestead last year, but nothing is guaranteed. Just because I ran second this week, doesn’t mean I’m going to finish anywhere next week. I think the points look pretty good, which is a positive, but you are never safe in this deal. We needed to win today, and unfortunately, we didn’t. We will go on to the next one.”
DENNY HAMLIN, No. 11 Yahoo Toyota Camry XSE, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 8th
How would you describe this day?
“Not a clean day. That certainly sums it up. You’ll have that. We did the best we could to get the best finish. I thought Chris (Gabehart, crew chief) did a great job to get some sort of finish. Once we lost the track position early, he was doing the best he could to try to get it back through strategy, and then it goes long there, and we fall to the back. Just part of it.”
How do you feel about your points position with Miami and Martinsville coming up?
“I don’t know where we are at, but certainly, we are not running quite as strong as we were earlier in the year, and we are definitely not as clean, execution wise, as we were. We will just have to clean it up and go to Homestead and try to win it.”
JOHN HUNTER NEMECHEK, No. 42 Pye Barker Fire & Safety Toyota Camry XSE, LEGACY MOTOR CLUB
Finishing Position: 9th
Solid run today, can you talk about your race?
“Solid day. We didn’t start off great – started in 26th, I think we fell back to the 30s and Brian (Campe, crew chief) and the engineers – everyone on this 42 Pye Barker Fire & Safety Toyota team worked really hard to get the car right. I felt like our communication was good today. I just felt like everything went okay. We got track position, made some adjustments, woke the car up. I felt like we were running top-15 there for a little bit, and we opted to save fuel on the strategy that we played and came home ninth. Obviously, we want more – but at the same time, very, very solid day for this 42 group, and something I feel like us and LEGACY MOTOR CLUB needed.”
JIMMIE JOHNSON, No. 84 Dollar Tree/Family Dollar Toyota Camry XSE, LEGACY MOTOR CLUB
Finishing Position: 28th
Can you talk about the race and how it all progressed for you today?
“Not bad for this Dollar Tree, Family Dollar Toyota. We were in that lucky dog position, and as the race went on and some quality cars were trapped down a lap, it just made that really tough and we narrowly missed getting back on the lead lap multiple times, so trapped down a lap, and just ran along and did what we could, but it was great to see our other two cars with pace, especially the 42 (John Hunter Nemechek) car finishing there in ninth. That was a great day for us.”
TYLER REDDICK, No. 45 Jordan Brand Toyota Camry XSE, 23XI Racing
Finishing Position: 35th
First off, are you okay and secondly, what happened out there?
“Yeah, you just have to be aggressive on restarts. It’s how the Next Gen racing has been from the beginning. I kind of saw them both have a moment, and I just had to split second make a decision. You have to be aggressive on the restart. It is hard to pass after a while. Being myself on a mile and a half, being aggressive – by the time I realized I was in trouble, the 19 (Martin Truex Jr.) started sliding and the 9 (Chase Elliott) was coming up and I was pretty much already on their outside at that point, with nowhere to really go. I needed to make the decision earlier when I saw them sliding to be more conservative to avoid an incident – just not who I am, but it is unfortunate. It took us out of the race. We had a really, really fast Jordan Brand Toyota Camry, probably would have been in the mix all race long, but we will go to Homestead – a place where I have had to get it done before and go for it there.”
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