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Joe Gibbs Racing driver Christopher Bell won Sunday's rain-shortened Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. The Toyota driver considers his victory something that the number 20 team can build on to regain the momentum that got Bell his first victory of the season in Phoenix in March.
Bell's latest victory was his first at Charlotte Motor Speedway and also his eighth career win. Currently, he stands 15th in the Cup Series standings with 320 points under his belt.
In a recent interview with NASCAR, Christopher Bell expressed his mirth after grabbing the checkered flag at the ROVAL and said:
"Man, it feels so good. To win or lose...just to have a great race to go off of, and a race that we led laps, we were able to pass cars. We lost the lead at times, we were able to drive back to the lead and had great pit stops."
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"This is a team effort and it was amazing that (we had) a good race and hopefully, this is something we can build on and get back to being more consistent," he added.
Bell led 90 laps in what was supposed to be a 400-lap race, holding off RFK Racing's driver and co-owner Brad Keselowski, until the weather intervened. He will now prepare for next week's race at the World Wide Technology Raceway.
Christopher Bell sheds light on his racing mindset
In a post-race media availability, Christopher Bell explained the aggressive nature of races that are likely to be cut short by unforeseen circumstances like weather. According to the 29-year-old racer, a lot of decisive moments take place in the first half of such races.
"The aggression level picks up whenever everybody knows that rain is in the area, it (the race) could be called short," Bell said. "The restarts become even more intense and everybody runs harder. Especially the Coca-Cola 600 because if it's going 600 miles, there's a lot of give-and-take that happens in the first half of the race."
The rain stopped at 10:30 p.m. ET, as reported by NBC Sports. It took an hour for the staff to dry off the track. The 2017 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series champion said he was surprised at NASCAR's decision to call the race even after the rain stopped.
"We didn't know if we were going back to racing or not but after the rain stopped I thought for sure we were gonna go back racing; I think everybody did. So that one caught me by total surprise when they called the race," he said in the same press conference.
Christopher Bell finished 13th, 6th, 34th, 38th, and 17th in his last five starts in NASCAR's point-paying races. He finished 17th in last week's All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro Speedway.
