In all his years competing in NASCAR’s premier level, Christopher Bell concedes he may never have grinned as big, cheered as loudly or just been so generally thrilled as he was in winning Sunday night’s Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway.
Joining the DAYTONA 500, Brickyard 400 and Coca-Cola 600 as one of the sport’s four “crown jewel” events, the Darlington race victory is a bright spot on any resume. For Bell, it is the brightest. Not only did he get to hoist a trophy he’d long sought, but his work in the NASCAR Cup Series Chase opener vaulted him into serious championship contention.
He cut a 50-point deficit to his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, the No. 1 seed Denny Hamlin, to only 12 points in just the first Chase race – hurdling Bell from sixth place in the standings to second.
The victory was massive for him personally – snapping a 33-race winless streak and putting an exclamation point on a season what already included a record-tying seven runner-up finishes in his No. 20 JGR Toyota. But the position he’s in now as the championship moves forward is even more consequential.
“It’s just incredible,” said the 31-year-old Oklahoman Bell, who now has 14 career series wins and calls the Southern 500 “my golden ticket.”
He conceded that the elation was two-fold.
“It was probably that winless streak I was on that makes me probably appreciate this more and soak it in more,” Bell said. “You never know when your next win is going to come or if this is your last one. That was too long to go without winning, especially with the product that we’re racing with, the Toyota race cars. I mean, they’re absolutely incredible.”
There was no need to remind Bell, the 2017 NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series champion, that Sunday night’s success was just the first step toward a title. But it was a big-time statement.
“We’re off to a great start, but no off weeks. Right back to work next week at Gateway and I still believe that I will have to win more races in the Chase if I want to be the champion,” he said.
No question, the guy hoisting the trophy Sunday night was the biggest winner – on the night and in the race to the 2026 title. Bell and fifth-place finisher, Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson, were the only two among the Chase top-10 to improve positions in the standings after Darlington. The two-time and reining series champ Larson – who finished fifth Sunday – moved from eighth to seventh in points, 49 behind Hamlin.
Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney, who went into the Chase ranked second, finished fourth at Darlington and dropped to third in the standings, 16 points off Hamlin. Tyler Reddick, who finished third Sunday night, also lost a position and is now fourth in the standings (-24). JGR’s Chase Briscoe fell from fifth to sixth in points and trails Hamlin by 37.
Their JGR teammate Ty Gibbs, who claimed his first two career NASCAR Cup Series victories earlier this year, qualified for his first Chase and came to Darlington an impressive fourth place in the standings. But the 23-year-old, suffered the biggest rankings drop inside the top-10. And that was even after finishing a career best runner-up to Bell on track.
Gibbs was forced to start the race from 28th on the grid (28th) because qualifying was cancelled and the field was set based on a metric. It hampered his ability to capitalize on early stage points like his title competitors who started closer to the front.
So, despite the great effort and comeback in the race, Gibbs still dropped to sixth place in points and is now 39 points off Hamlin’s pace.
All the heavy movement in the standings only a single race into the 10-race Chase, certainly presents plenty of intrigue for this week’s Round 2 stop at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway for Sunday’s Enjoy Illinois 300 (3 p.m. ET on USA, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
With only four previous NASCAR Cup Series races at the 1.25-mile oval, there simply isn’t a lot of history to base projections.
Bell hasn’t finished worse than 11th in the four Gateway races. However, three of his Chase competitors – Team Penske teammates Joey Logano (2022) and Austin Cindric (2024) and Hamlin (2025) are past winners there.
And it may well be a place for Hamlin – who finished 18th at Darlington after suffering damage in a mid-race collision – to return to season form. Not only is he the defending race winner (from pole position), but he finished runner-up in the two previous races.
The three-time series champion Logano has also been especially good at Gateway. In addition to winning the inaugural race there, he’s never finished worse than fifth.
Practice at Gateway is set for 3:30 p.m. ET on Saturday, followed by Busch Light Pole Qualifying at 4:35 p.m. ET.
— NASCAR Wire Service —