The Chevrolet’s dominance at the NASCAR Cup Series was broken in Phoenix thanks to Joe Gibbs Racing and Christopher Bell on Sunday. The new Toyota Camry showed just how good it can be paired with the new aero package that made passing a bit easier. The win also meant that the last year’s championship race driver booked his place in the playoffs this year too. However, going into the race, Bell was not a happy man as his confidence had taken a serious hit.

Having confidence in oneself is crucial in every sport and the JGR racer had the difficult job of building that back up. However, despite these challenges, the #20 crossed the checkered flag first and brought a smile to Joe Gibbs‘ face.

Christopher Bell found his fighting spirit back during qualifying

The Joe Gibbs racing star finished P34 and P33 in the last couple of races in the Cup Series going into Phoenix. After what happened in the finale last season, he already did not have a good memory of the venue and after a poor start to the season, things weren’t looking good. In the post-race press conference, the JGR driver admitted to being upset as he was coming into the race. He used that emotion as fuel to drive him to victory lane when the time came.

“I came in here a sad man. I suck at trying to stay upbeat after a run of bad races and Atlanta was furthest from my fault and but it’s still a 34th place finish and we got a 33rd place finish last week so I was pretty sad and I try to not let that affect my driving and we showed up on Friday and had a bunch of pace. Had a really good practice so I was feeling a lot better about it,” he revealed.

But moving up the field was not an easy task, especially with Bell’s car not performing well when in traffic. Restarts were an issue for the JGR star. However, as green flag conditions continued and the cars began getting more and more spaced out, the #20 picked them off one by one. Whenever he would pit and lose the lead, Christopher Bell ended up angry since he had to do the passing all over again. However, when the final caution came out, he had composed himself and knew exactly what he needed to do.

Even then, Bell did not believe that he had what it takes to win the race from that position. It was only after he passed several cars, perhaps surprising himself even, and found himself in P3 that he started to believe.

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When Christopher Bell started to believe in himself

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From then on, it was rather simple. The 29-year-old had the better tires and faster speed as he cleared those ahead of him and resumed the lead. It was actually quite a dominant performance from a man who seemingly had no confidence in himself. Toyota led a whopping 298 out of 312 laps in the event and Christopher Bell was responsible for 50 of them and a stage win too.

“I think I got to the first car on four tires and then it started looking a little bit more positive. I wasn’t thinking win at all until I got to third behind the #54 and I knew the #19 didn’t have enough gas to finish, and the #54 was on right side tires so I knew that I was in pretty good shape at that point,” Bell added.

The 29-year-old will be looking to take this kind of form into next weekend’s race at Bristol on the unpredictable dirt track. He had a lot of experience in dirt racing when he was growing up and all of that knowledge will come into play next Sunday. Will the #20 driver be able to repeat his Phoenix feat? Let us know your thoughts.

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