NEW SMYRNA BEACH, Fla. — It was a bittersweet victory at best for Christopher Bell on Saturday night in the Bruce Gowland Memorial 100 at New Smyrna Speedway.
The Kyle Busch Motorsports development driver had extra motivation following the news that his boss, Sprint Cup driver Kyle Busch, was seriously injured in the NASCAR XFINITY Series race at Daytona International Speedway and would have to miss the Daytona 500 due to a broken foot.
Bell stalked a race dominant Harrison Burton for over half the race, finally overtaking the second-generation driver on a restart with 20 laps to go. From there, Bell never looked back, holding off Burton over the remainder of the race, despite several late race cautions.
Bell said the victory was a matter of patience.
“We knew we had a really good car with about 40 in, 60 to go, got to second pretty nice,” Bell said. “Whenever I was behind Harrison I was trying to take my time and was able to get up to him, late in the race I was able to get beside him a couple times and the yellow would come out.
“I finally got one of those really good restarts where I don’t know if he spun his tires or I just did it really nice and was able to stay side-by-side with him down the frontstretch and was able to beat him off turn 2.”
Bell said he was fully aware what had happened to Busch in the NASCAR race and that it certainly added extra momentum for him to win the race.
“We were obviously really bummed when we heard about it, so it made it really tough decision to strap in, but I was glad we were able to get some good news out of this day,” he said.
The real drama came behind him where Zane Smith and Garrett Jones were fighting for fourth and fifth — and for the championship. Ultimately, Smith finished ahead of him and actually extended final advantage, defeating Jones by three points to win the same title also held by Mark Martin and Dick Trickle.
Despite running nose-to-tail, Smith said he never felt once that Jones would wreck him for the championship.
“That guy, I owe him big time,” Smith said. “He raced me super clean and can’t thank him enough. I also got to thank my parents, (my sponsors) and team — everyone that put this deal together.”
“We didn’t come here expecting to win or even win a championship. We were behind on the points, a bunch of guys wrecked in front us, and we stayed out of thoese wrecks. It was an incredible experience.”
Smith will take this momentum to the Pro All Stars Series (PASS South) and CARS Super Late Model Tour where he hopes to run for a majority of the season.
The complete results of the Bruce Gowland Memorial 100 can be found below.
- Christopher Bell
- Harrison Burton
- Spencer Davis
- Zane Smith
- Garrett Jones
- Steve Wallace
- Paul Shafer, Jr.
- T.J. Duke
- Alex Labbé
- Rico Abreu
- David Rogers
- Joey Mucciacciaro
- Derek Kraus
- Josh Collins
- Chuck Tuck
- Steve Weaver
- Drew Brannon
- Claire Decker
- Brandon Johnson
- Bobby Good
- Anthony Sergi
- Denver Foran
- Kyle McCallum
- Gus Dean
- Daniel Keene, Jr.
- Brad May
- Natalie Decker
The FINAL championship standings …
- Zane Smith
- Garrett Jones -3
- Stephen Wallace -9
- Harrison Burton -10
- Paul Shafer -27
- Joey Mucciacciaro -24
- Natalie Decker -54
- Denver Foran -59
- Ty Majeski -62
- David Rogers -65
- Rico Abreu -69
- Derek Kraus -82
- David Garbo -86
- Spencer Davis -87
- Josh Collins -87
