Christopher Bell Overcame a “Lot of New” to Hand Toyota Their First Win of the Season

It has not been the best of starts to the season for Joe Gibbs Racing, but Christopher Bell made things a lot better when he won the Cup race in Phoenix. The success of the #20 team, however, is not limited to just the driver, but the crew members as well. With the new short track package and Toyota’s new Camry bodywork, there were a lot of unknowns heading into the season. It made the team work extra hard to get the car as fine-tuned as possible and finally; it bore fruit.

Ford too has had to deal with the same thing Toyota has as they too have a new body with the Dark Horse Mustang. Chevrolet was the only manufacturer to retain its car design from last year and that showed on track. In the first three races, the Chevys were unstoppable, but it was only a matter of time before the Toyotas and the Fords figured it out. Christopher Bell has the honor to have done so first.

One reason the #20 team was able to adapt to the new short-track package better than the others was their participation in the test late last year. In December, NASCAR went to the Phoenix Raceway to test the short track package and Christopher Bell was one of the drivers called. The data his team gathered from that session must have been absolutely crucial as it gave them a massive headstart against the rest of the pack.

“We were fortunate enough to be a part of that test in December. It’s a new aero package for the field, it’s a new body for Toyota…there’s just a lot of new in there and it took a lot different setup to really get the balance back and credit to my guys, my new engineer White Knight and William really dug in there along with myself and Bell and came up with something that was gonna work and it did,” crew chief Adam Stevens said.

Phoenix was all about redemption for Bell, who did not even finish the season finale here last year after his brake rotor exploded. And he redeemed himself in the best possible way as he booked his spot in the playoffs. The driver of the #20 credited a lot of that win to Stevens later on, who was in charge of the team getting used to everything new in NASCAR at the moment, and that job was not easy for anyone.

However, when the job was done and things worked out, it was the best feeling for everyone working on the team. With his boss, Joe Gibbs by his side, Adam Stevens cut a proud figure as he basked in the glory of being a race winner again.

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He spoke about where the team went wrong last time they were at Phoenix, but acknowledged that they have improved quite a lot.

“It’s a little bit cathartic. We felt like we were gonna be really competitive in the race last time. We again started a little bit too…just missing the balance a little bit and had one attempt to fix it and blew that rotor just a few laps later but I felt like we had what we needed to race for it for sure and if anything, we built off that this weekend and we were definitely better this week,” the 45-year-old said.

The short-track package might have its critics, but for the #20 Toyota Camry, it worked out brilliantly. In fact, Toyota dominated this race, so perhaps the body design of the new Camry is suited to the aero package NASCAR has come out with. If that is the case then short-track races will be extremely intriguing to watch. Do you think the Toyotas will benefit most from the new package this year?

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