{"id":6958,"date":"2019-06-16T21:57:26","date_gmt":"2019-06-17T01:57:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=6958"},"modified":"2019-06-16T21:57:26","modified_gmt":"2019-06-17T01:57:26","slug":"xfinity-christopher-bell-dominates-again-winning-at-iowa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2019\/06\/16\/xfinity-christopher-bell-dominates-again-winning-at-iowa\/","title":{"rendered":"Xfinity: Christopher Bell dominates again, winning at Iowa"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the running order in the top 10 shuffled at an almost interchangeable pace at the Circuit City 250 at Iowa Speedway on Sunday, one thing stayed constant: Christopher Bell<\/strong> had the lead.<\/p>\n

Bell led 186 and was fast from the start, eventually pulling away from second-place\u00a0Cole Custer\u00a0<\/strong>and even winning the second stage of the race by 5.99 seconds.<\/p>\n

Not only did Bell win his fourth race of the NASCAR Xfinity Series season, he earned his second win at Iowa in a row and his third top three at the short track.<\/p>\n

Xfinity: Christopher Bell dominates again, winning at Iowa<\/h2>\n

\u201cWe just had really good pit stops, made really good adjustments and [our car] was extremely fast,\u201d Bell said. \u201cReally late in the run, we were really good. That\u2019s a \u2018hats off\u2019 to Jason [Ratcliffe].\u201d<\/p>\n

At this point last season, Bell had only one win in the series, and he finished the year with seven.<\/p>\n

It begged the question of if Bell is ready to make the move to the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series.<\/p>\n

Though, Bell wanted no part of the answer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not really my place to talk,” Bell said. “I\u2019ll let Steve answer that.”<\/p>\n

Bell’s referring to Steve DeSouza<\/strong>, the executive vice president of the Xfinity and Development programs at Joe Gibbs Racing.<\/p>\n

DeSouza opted not to answer the question and Bell explained why he didn’t want to comment.<\/p>\n

“Last year, I think my answer got taken out of context. I got in a bit of trouble,” Bell said.<\/p>\n

But, Bell expanded on what he wanted to say.<\/p>\n

“I never really dreamed to be racing NASCAR,” Bell said. “My goal was not to be a NASCAR cup racer. My goal was to make a living driving a race car. If I’m truck racing, sprint car racing, or midget racing, I’ve already exceeded and fulfilled my dream.\u00a0Whether I\u2019m running Xfinity or Cup [next year], I\u2019ll be happy.”<\/p>\n

Later, DeSouza was asked again.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur job here is to expose great talent and develop good racers\u201d DeSouza said. \u201cChristopher, obviously, right now is at the top of the chart or one of them. So, I would say our job on the Xfinity side is to develop and expose.”<\/p>\n

DeSouza and JGR’s three drivers on the track were one spot away from seeing each of them in the top 10.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a lot of good competitors out there right now, hopefully we can continue that. I think that\u2019s a great example today with Jason and the No. 20 team to make sure their car was well prepared,” DeSouza said. “We try to do that with every car. That\u2019s our goal is to advance each of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harrison Burton\u00a0<\/strong>even brought the No. 18 car home in P4.<\/p>\n

With 29 laps remaining, Burton jumped on the restart and managed to get up to fourth from P10 in less than 12 laps.<\/p>\n

“It was a lot of fun,” Burton said. “I had a car that fired off really well. It fired off loose, but it was fast. It was fun to hold on to it and pass guys with it. That helped me a lot.”<\/p>\n

Burton was participating in his second Xfinity series race of his career, part of a limited schedule he is racing for JGR in his first year at the level.<\/p>\n

His first and only other result came at Bristol<\/a> earlier this season, where Burton finished P10.<\/p>\n

Now, he officially has a top 10 streak.<\/p>\n

“I just started going where they were not and driving as hard as I could and things worked out,” Burton said. “It was a good feeling to pass all these cars today, I just wish we could have passed three more.”<\/p>\n

The result came hours after Burton finished P3 in the NASCAR Gander Outdoors Series race.<\/a><\/p>\n

Both finishes come in a recent string of success where the North Carolina native has been instrumental in his racing the since his boss,\u00a0Kyle Busch<\/strong>, had some criticisms for it.<\/p>\n

Burton says it’s unrelated, though.<\/p>\n

“I don’t think it’s necessarily his words,” Burton said. “I think it’s myself more than anything. I’m probably harder on myself than he is on me. I was getting to be in a really good rhythm today.”<\/p>\n

Another team that flashed their leather on Sunday afternoon was Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s JR Motorsports<\/strong> squad.<\/p>\n

Each of their four drivers finished in the top nine spots after\u00a0Noah Gragson\u00a0<\/strong>used a late ‘Lucky dog’ to get back on the lead lap and finish P6.<\/p>\n

“Something happened, I dont know,” Gragson said. “We ran two or three laps down the whole day and somehow miraculously came back and finished sixth.”<\/p>\n

The series is back in action after a bye week at Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, Illinois.<\/p>\n

Bell said he thinks it could foreshadow a big moment for this season, as well.<\/p>\n

“I know Chicago is going to be a big test for Homestead, so hopefully we can go there with some speed,” Bell said.<\/p>\n

The race will be named the Camping World 300 and will be televised on NBCSN with a scheduled green flag for 3:00 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
NASCAR Xfinity\u00a0 Series Playoff Grid<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Position<\/strong><\/td>\nDriver<\/strong><\/td>\nWins<\/strong><\/td>\nPlayoff Points<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1<\/td>\nChristopher Bell<\/td>\n4<\/td>\n28<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2<\/td>\nCole Custer<\/td>\n3<\/td>\n20<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
3<\/td>\nTyler Reddick<\/td>\n3<\/td>\n18<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
4<\/td>\nMichael Annett<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Wildcard Standings (no wins)<\/strong><\/td>\nPoints<\/strong><\/td>\nCutoff<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
5<\/td>\nJustin Allgaier<\/td>\n527<\/td>\n+236<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
6<\/td>\nAustin Cindric<\/td>\n522<\/td>\n+231<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
7<\/td>\nChase Briscoe<\/td>\n470<\/td>\n+179<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
8<\/td>\nJH Nemechek<\/td>\n463<\/td>\n+172<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
9<\/td>\nNoah Gragson<\/td>\n461<\/td>\n+170<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
10<\/td>\nJustin Haley<\/td>\n424<\/td>\n133<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
11<\/td>\nRyan Sieg<\/td>\n387<\/td>\n+96<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
12<\/td>\nBrandon Jones<\/td>\n382<\/td>\n+91<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Playoff Cutoff<\/strong><\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
13<\/td>\nGray Gaulding<\/td>\n291<\/td>\n-91<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
14<\/td>\nSheldon Creed<\/td>\n262<\/td>\n-120<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the running order in the top 10 shuffled at an almost interchangeable pace at the Circuit City 250 at Iowa Speedway on Sunday, one thing stayed constant: Christopher Bell had the lead. Bell led 186 and was fast from the start, eventually pulling away from second-place\u00a0Cole Custer\u00a0and even winning the second stage of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":315,"featured_media":6959,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[390,1152,1151,52,389,644,333,127,14,126,992,1153],"class_list":["post-6958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-christopher-bell","tag-circuit-city-250","tag-cole-custer","tag-dale-earnhardt-jr","tag-harrison-burton","tag-iowa-speedway","tag-joe-gibbs-racing","tag-jr-motorsports","tag-nascar","tag-nascar-xfinity-series","tag-noah-gragson","tag-steve-desouza"],"modified_by":"Connor Ferguson","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/315"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}