Toyota Racing – Christopher Bell
NASCAR XFINITY Series (NXS)
NASCAR Media Tour, Charlotte – January 24, 2018
Joe Gibbs Racing driver Christopher Bell was made available to the media in Charlotte:
CHRISTOPHER BELL, No. 20 Rheem Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
How do you feel about people’s expectations for you?
“Well, that’s cool that people believe in me that much. That is really cool. But I’ve got a year of XFINITY ahead of me, and I’m going to focus part on making the Final Four at Homestead. If we can win races, compete for wins every week and make the Final Four at Homestead, that’s a win for us. So yeah, just kind of ‑‑ that’s the same goal that I had going into last year, and really as long as you’re competitive and can capitalize on that and win some races, you know, that sets you up for the year. That allows you to ‑‑ if you win one race, you’re in the Chase, and then if you win multiple races you can start building on those points, and it makes getting to Homestead a lot easier.”
Have you guys talked about extracurricular stuff you’ll be able to do this year?
“With the XFINITY schedule, it’s going to be a lot tougher to run as many races as I did last year. Last year I got to race a lot. But I still will be able to race some. I don’t have a schedule ‑‑ I probably won’t be making a dirt schedule, just kind of off‑weekend, see what’s racing, what rides I can get, where at and stuff like that. I won’t make a dirt schedule, but I’ll still be able to run some dirt races.”
Do you have a number in mind for how many you’d like to run based on the schedule?
“So last year I think I ran close to ‑‑ heck, I don’t know, I think I ran close to 40, 35 or 40 races. So I won’t be able to do that many, but if I could hit ‑‑ I really have no idea. I’ve already done Chili Bowl.”
I know you’ll do Turkey Night.
“Yeah, Turkey Night, so there’s two, and just kind of sprinkle in throughout the year. I don’t think I’m going to be doing any more dirt racing before Daytona, so once the season starts we go pretty hard until March, so yeah, middle of March will probably be my next opportunity.”
Do you have any idea how busy your day‑to‑day schedule during the week will be compared to what trucks last year?
“I don’t know. It’s going to be different because the trucks have so many off weeks that you really don’t get a race ‑‑ you don’t get multiple race back‑to‑back‑to‑back weekends like you do in XFINITY. It’s going to be a new lifestyle for me, but I’d rather race instead of sitting at home waiting for the next one.”
Does it surprise you that some people have already crowned you the 2018 XFINITY Series champion?
“Well, I just have to live up to it now, right? I’ve got the equipment to do it. I’ve got the crew chief to do it. So I just have to do it. You know, to win a championship, especially with this format, is ‑‑ it’s so hard to do. So A, you have to be good at Homestead. If you’re not good at Homestead, you can write it off. So that’s a very key part of winning a championship. But before that, you have to win races throughout the year to put yourself in that position. We’ve got a long road to go before we worry about winning a championship. We just need to focus on being competitive, number one, qualifying good, number two, and capitalizing on the speed that we should have and try and win races.”
Does the hot streak you’ve had over the winter with the Chili Bowl and the other sprint car wins that you’ve had, is there such a thing as carrying that over? Does that give you confidence heading into the season, or is it a whole different discipline?
“Well, confidence is ‑‑ racing is a very head game sport, so confidence is really big, and you can ‑‑ whenever your confidence is up, racing is a lot easier, and it’s a lot easier to run good. But I’ve been racing since I was six years old, and I’ve learned that you have these highs and lows, and seemed like 2015 was a low and then 2016 was a high. Unfortunately at some point, it’s going to start tapering back off, but I’m not going to let that be 2018.”
Insofar as the schedule this year, obviously more races on the XFINITY side than the Truck side and no dirt. Are you disappointed that you don’t get an Eldora type race in the XFINITY car like you had in the trucks?
“Well, I guess for my competitive edge, yes, because I had a pretty decent advantage whenever it came to Eldora (Speedway). But that’s not NASCAR racing. Everyone knows going into Eldora that it doesn’t relate to anything that you’ll ever doing moving forward, that it doesn’t relate to anything you’ll do throughout the rest of the year in the Truck Series. Besides the fact that it’s a race on the schedule that I have an advantage at, other than that, it’s kind of ‑‑ it is what it is.”
What are you most looking forward to this year?
“I’m looking forward to Darlington (Raceway) and California (Auto Club Speedway). Those are two racetracks that I didn’t get to go to on the truck schedule. They do race really well. They’re, I guess, sort of man racetracks, like Darlington you need to be able to go good next to the wall, and I feel like that’s up my alley, and California is another place, they both wear out tires a lot. California is really rough. I’m looking forward to those races a lot.”
You didn’t do any XFINITY plate racing last year, right?
“No, I did not.”
So when you do Daytona, how do you expect that style of racing to be different from trucks?
“That’s a great question. I don’t know. Plate racing has never really been my ‑‑ one thing I looked forward to after my Daytona incident a couple years ago. Just going to study film, and I’ve got a lot of – (Daniel) Suárez was my teammate, Kyle Busch was my boss, Erik (Jones) was my teammate, so I’ve got a lot of guys that have kind of done the same path as I have, or at least been there, done that in both divisions, so I’ll rely on those guys to tell me what I need going into Daytona, and yeah. But the big thing for me will be studying film and trying to learn as much as I can.”
It might be a ways off, but are you hopeful that you guys might be able to put something together for trucks at Eldora?
“It would be really cool if I got to run the track race at Eldora. Eldora is my favorite racetrack, so it’s always fun whenever I get to go back there. XFINITY is not racing that day, so there’s hope. But got to find a ride first.”
Road courses, it didn’t necessarily seem like it was your strong suit last year in the truck, but there’s a bunch of them all together.
“Yeah, I’d better figure out how to get good at road courses, that’s for sure. I don’t know, the truck race last year I actually was fairly fast. I won a practice session and I think qualified in the top 5. That was something that I was really proud of, and I was going to ‑‑ it looked like I was going to finish top 5, top 3 before I went from third to second again. But I struggled really bad at Road America. That was not my strong suit throughout the year. I’ve got to get better at road course racing, and I’m going to be doing a lot of homework because road course racing makes up a fair amount of the schedule this year, especially with the Roval or Charlotte road course being part of the playoffs.”
What are you expecting from the Roval?
“I think the guys that are good at road courses love it, and the guys that are not good at road courses hate it. Whenever they announced that they were going to do it, I was excited, man, because I thought I was going to be at home sitting on the couch watching it. So I was super excited to watch it. And then I realized I was going to be driving, and I got a lot more nervous. I’ve got to get better at road courses. That’s the bottom line for me. Like I said, the guys that are good at road courses are really happy that it’s happening, so yeah.”
I’m curious, from a driver standpoint, because we can sit back and look and see how some of the racing is different, but what are the differences for you since going to the XFINITY car compared to truck?
“The biggest thing is just the aerodynamics, right? That’s pretty much the difference, so to speak. They’ve got pretty much the same motor package. Whenever you’re inside the car or the truck, you know, the horsepower is really similar. The tires are really similar. Everything is really similar until you start going 180 miles an hour, and then the trucks you can just run so hard because they have so much downforce. You can almost run wide open at most mile‑and‑a‑halfs by yourself. But the trucks have so much dirty air because they’re so aero dependent, the dirty air is way worse than what they are in the XFINITY cars. Aside from that, you’ve just got to figure out my limits with the lower downforce. That was something that I felt like I didn’t get a handle on very good last year, so I’ve got to work on that, just finding my limits, how hard I can drive them, and stuff like that.”
Talking about road courses, is there anything that’s transferable from what you do week to week, oval racing, going to the road course, or what can the road course enhance for you bringing back to the oval?
“Well, honestly for me, I feel like the road course relates a lot to dirt racing because dirt racing there are so many things you can do to manipulate your car to benefit you throughout the race, where pavement oval racing, there’s not really too many things. If you’re fighting a tight condition, you’re tight. If you’re fighting a loose condition, you’re loose. You go to pavement racing, and if you’re a little bit tight, typically you can find a curve and run over a curve and make it turn a little bit better or you can try a different angle through the corner or you can turn earlier or turn later, so there’s a lot of different things on road course racing to manipulate your car to make it drive better. So that’s one thing that I really enjoy about road course racing. I just have to figure out how to pick up speed on it.”
Last year it was somewhat controversial, I think it involved Erik Jones and another driver making a comment, that was a classic dirt track move. I’m thinking that sounds like a skill set that’s transferable into oval racing, so just an observation.
“Yeah, each driver has their own tendencies from the racing style that they grew up doing, so yeah, you can kind of ‑‑ pavement late model guys will bring their stuff over, dirt guys will bring their stuff over, so yeah.”
Why do you think that maybe ‑‑ just again, this is your opinion, in the open wheel series it has been so hard for them to have some measure of success in stock car racing?
“Well, I don’t really think that’s true. There’s been a lot of open wheel guys that are legends of the sport, like Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart.”
More the IndyCars I’m thinking, Scott Pruett and some of those. It just seems like there’s some difficulty.
“Yeah, I don’t know. I’ve never driven an IndyCar or anything like that, so it’s hard for me to relate to that.”
Probably the IndyCar is the only thing you haven’t driven. I’ve seen you in the midgets and in the sprint cars. I think one of the most important things for the drivers, especially the young drivers, is how you interact with the media. You do a very good job with that. Did you have any formal training?
“No, I haven’t had any formal training. It’s just a matter of doing it, and the more you do it, the more comfortable you get with it. That’s the biggest thing for me is just learning to be comfortable with someone holding a recorder in your face or a microphone in your face. And I’ve still got to get better at it. But yeah, just experience.”
For some drivers it’s tough. Now Ryan Blaney, he’s a natural. But years ago I was hired by a marketing company to work with his dad, and when I went in, they said, now, this next gentleman you’re going to work with, he doesn’t like to talk. You’re going to have a problem. When Dave walked in and said hi, the guy said I think you’ll be okay. But I think Ryan has benefitted from the struggles that his dad has, and he actually has his own podcast.
“Yeah, it’s really cool. You know, the Blaneys have obviously been around for a long time, and I’ve raced with Dale a lot through the sprint car ranks, and Dale is Ryan’s uncle, and then didn’t get to race with Dave that much, but I was teammates with Ryan at one time. Yeah, it’s cool to see them doing good.”
I asked Ryan last year, with grandfather, father, uncle all in sprint cars, how did you end up with fenders. He said, they didn’t have sprint cars where I lived.
“Yeah, every time I see him I ask him when he’s going to drive a sprint car because Dave is a World of Outlaws champion, Dale is a, whatever he is, a bazillion‑time All‑Star champion. But yeah, we’ve got to get ol’ Ryan in a sprint car.”
I was surprised that your name wasn’t in the All‑Star truck. Are you kind of bummed that you’re not going to be running any truck races this year?
“Yeah, I am really bummed that I’m not running any truck races this year. I don’t know, honestly, the thing that disappointed me the most was Eldora. That was something that Rudy(Fugle) really, really wanted to win, and he gave me a truck that I could have won in, and I spun out with it. So I was hoping that I’d get to go back to Eldora with Rudy and maybe get another shovel for myself and get Rudy a shovel for himself. Unfortunately it’s not going to happen.”
Is that one Truck Series race you’d like to run, Eldora?
“Yeah, obviously that place kind of kick‑started my career in 2015 whenever I won there. But Rudy has won almost every truck race except Eldora and Martinsville (Speedway), and Eldora is my strong suit. I was really bummed that I didn’t get to win that for him.”
Volusia?
“I’d love to run Volusia (Speedway Park), but I don’t have a ride yet. Hey, car owners, I’m open.”
I know that’s been a big thing for you any time you’ve gone back and run dirt, isn’t it?
“Yeah, you definitely want to be in good equipment, and that’s one thing that driving for Tony Stewart was really, really good at. I was going to have the best race cars and the best crew chief and best motors that I could ask for, and yeah, so if I’m going to go back ‑‑ especially Volusia. Volusia you’d better have your stuff together.”
