Christopher Bell was able to come to life in the final stage of Friday night’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Tennessee Army National Guard 250 at Bristol Motor Speedway, and he was able to parlay the late-race speed into a victory.
Race Results: Tennessee Army National Guard 250 at Bristol
Bell held off Chandler Smith, the defending winner of this event, in the closing laps as he crossed the finish line first with a victory margin of 0.330 seconds.
For Bell, who was driving the No. 62 Toyota Tundra TRD Pro for Halmar Friesen Racing, this is the eighth win of his NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series career, and it came in career start No. 60. Bell, who has run part-time in five separate seasons since his 2017 Truck Series championship season, had not won since that magical 2017 season until Friday night’s triumph.
“Oh man, that was just so awesome to be able to win a truck race,” Bell said in his victory interview on FS1. “Man, it’s been what, since 2017, since I’ve won one of these things. So, it’s a lot of fun racing with this group, this HFR group.”
Bell was happy to be able to get the win for the Halmar Friesen team, who he stepped in for a season ago when Friesen was seriously injured late in the season in a dirt crash in Canada.
With his runner-up finish, Chandler Smith regained the point lead, as he holds a slim one-point advantage over Kaden Honeycutt, however, he narrowly missed out on the $50,000 Triple Truck Challenge bonus. Had he won the race on Friday night, he would have pocketed the extra money.
Gio Ruggiero came home with a third-place finish ahead of Ross Chastain and Christian Eckes.
Eckes was the dominant driver in Friday night’s race, as he led a race-high 132 laps, and took home the Stage 1 win. However, Eckes was also the most controversial driver in the field. On Lap 180, Eckes was nudged from the lead by Corey Heim, who was looking for his third consecutive win, which would have netted him a $350,000 payout as part of the Triple Truck Challenge.
As Heim was going by, Eckes veered into the right rear corner of Heim’s truck, made contact on the straightaway, and this sent Heim crashing hard into the outside wall. He collected his teammate and championship point leader, Kaden Honeycutt.
It was a nasty crash, and the end result were finishes of 30th and 31st for Heim and Honeycutt.
