NASHVILLE TURNING POINT: NO SURPRISE BELL IS RINGING OUT; PLUS, IS A WIN THE ONLY REMAINING PATH TO THE PLAYOFFS?

Here‘s what‘s happening in the world of NASCAR with New Hampshire Motor Speedway in the rearview and Nashville Superspeedway (Sun., 3:30 p.m. ET, NBC) right around the corner.

THE LINEUP ️

1️⃣ Imagine that — Christopher Bell back in title-favorite picture

2️⃣ Not in the provisional playoff field yet? You might need to win

3️⃣ Chase Briscoe’s pathway to Joe Gibbs Racing, Coach’s courting

4️⃣ Drivers to beat this weekend — on the surface

5️⃣ Catch the pack — news and notes from around the garage

1. Imagine that — Christopher Bell back in title-favorite picture

Christopher Bell just grabbed the New Hampshire weekend by its claws and inserted himself full throttle into the championship favorites tier.

Sorry to spoil the surprise, but Christopher Bell might just be your 2024 championship favorite.

For those who watched ‘NASCAR: Full Speed‘ on Netflix (and if you haven’t, what are you waiting for?), you’ll know that the reserved No. 20 driver tends to get a little slept on in favor of the more boisterous personalities among NASCAR’s perennial contenders.

Of every driver in the NASCAR Cup Series at the moment, however, there’s but one who can boast (though he wouldn’t) back-to-back Championship 4 appearances the past two years — and he just won his third race of 2024, a mere 18 weeks into the season. At the more micro level, Bell also has the longest current top-10 streak in 2024 with five straight finishes of ninth or better — two of which were wins — with the next closest driver having just two consecutive top 10s.

For whatever reason, the No. 20 driver often is not brought up immediately as a championship favorite in preseason conversations as the winter chatter of late generally centers around drivers like Kyle Larson, Chase Elliott, Joey Logano and Ryan Blaney. Even Bell’s teammates Denny Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr., who combine for 38 full-time seasons to his five — collectively have just one more Cup title than the Oklahoma native. When Bell won the Coca-Cola 600 — one of NASCAR’s most revered races — for the first time last month, even that got overshadowed by the rain-shortened nature of the victory and Larson’s frustrating day attempting the Indy/Charlotte double and subsequent waiver drama.

After the weekend we just saw, where he was the center of attention at the “Magic Mile” for literally three days straight, this feels like the moment he’s emerged as one of the sport’s true megastars. (Not to mention, he makes a pretty decent press conference moderator.)

Bell’s development into a lethal Cup Series contender capable of scraping together double-digit wins in a season hasn’t come as a surprise to one person who’s been behind him every step of the way since his 2017 Xfinity Series debut for the team — Coach Joe Gibbs.

“I just think Christopher … he’s gifted, and the further he goes, we all just really appreciate it. I think he’s a real talented, young guy,” Gibbs said after Bell put on a show to win the New Hampshire race on wet-weather tires. “To be truthful, with him not in (the media center), I’ll tell you, he’s the All-American guy. Sponsors love him. He’s just a kid that everybody loves. So it’s great to see him, too, get the success that I think he deserves. He’s worked hard. He came in (to the Cup Series) during COVID. He got in cars without making a lap that first year and went through all of that. So I really appreciate that.

” … I think he’s gaining confidence as he goes. It’s great to see a young guy like that, that really and truly deserves it. So it’s a thrill for us to be a part of it, and I joked with people. I said, ‘We can ride him for 20 years.’ ”

Twenty-year talents at one premier organization — that’s rare. That’s Hamlin, Jeff Gordon territory right there. And it truly doesn’t feel out of place for Gibbs to set that high of a bar for Bell — it feels quite evident JGR’s long-term foundation has been mostly set, with Bell, Ty Gibbs and newcomer Chase Briscoe continuing to sharpen under the veteran Hamlin’s tutelage until he’s ready to pass the baton to whoever winds up being the final piece of the puzzle for the Toyota-backed organization’s next decade-plus.

And down the line when the 43-year-old Hamlin does eventually exit the building, it’s obvious whose name will ring out as the team’s new de facto leader.

2. Not in the provisional playoff field yet? You might need to win

From this point on in the season, it’s historically been difficult for drivers below the elimination line to race their way into the playoffs on points.

In the history of the NASCAR Playoffs format, the steepest points deficit a driver has overcome with eight or fewer regular-season races remaining is … three.

Read that again, because I couldn’t believe it myself.

It’s actually only been accomplished a total of five times, period — all from a standings position no deeper than 17th at this point. Bubba Wallace was the last one to do it — last year — when he was in a three-point hole with seven to go. After a frustrating end to his New Hampshire race, Wallace is once again the 17th-place driver in the playoff standings, meaning that if he were to carve out a 2024 playoff spot on points, it would be by far the largest hole ever climbed out of at this point, and it’s a modest 13 points.

In other words, historically speaking, the only true remaining path to the playoffs for any driver currently below the elimination line at this point is a trip to Victory Lane.

Anything can happen in NASCAR, and we’ve already seen two mildly surprising winners in the Cup Series this year so far, but looking at the rest of the hopefuls, it’s tough to see any likely to win over the next eight races. Of the 14 drivers in the top 30 currently outside the playoffs, they have 14 total top-five finishes — combined.

Of course, one of those drivers is No. 8 Richard Childress Racing driver Kyle Busch, who has won at least one race in each of the previous 19 seasons. He’s probably the one you look at the hardest, but the two-time Cup champ is also riding a career-long winless streak and is currently mired in a truly dismal last month of races. RCR announced a shakeup to its competition department on Tuesday afternoon, however, which could potentially be a shot in the arm over the final two months of the regular season.

Rowdy is one of seven full-time drivers to win in 2023 and has yet to take a checkered flag in ’24, but one of just three that aren’t in the provisional playoff field, along with Michael McDowell and Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

Team Penske’s Joey Logano was also part of this club before New Hampshire, but he leaped over Wallace with 22 points to No. 23’s total of three despite finishing just two spots higher in the running order. (Stage points matter, friends.)

All that said, this does feel like the kind of year where this trend could be broken. We’ve already seen two of the closest finishes in the history of the sport in one season, so who’s to say another record-breaking moment isn’t right around the corner?

There are certainly some interesting tracks on the horizon with a lot of unknowns, all of them almost entirely different, as well. Here’s what’s left:

Nashville Superspeedway: 1.333 concrete oval

Chicago Street Course: 2.2 mile, 12-turn street course

Pocono Raceway: 2.5 mile “Tricky Triangle”

Indianapolis Motor Speedway: a return to the 2.5-mile oval after a few years running the infield road course

Richmond Raceway: 0.75-mile short track

Michigan International Speedway: 2-mile high-speed oval

Daytona International Speedway: 2.5-mile high-banked drafting track

Darlington Raceway: 1.366 egg-shaped oval

You can’t say those tracks aren’t full of opportunities. It’s just going to come down to who’s going to make the most of them.

3. Chase Briscoe’s pathway to Joe Gibbs Racing, Coach’s courting

On Stacking Pennies with Corey LaJoie, Chase Briscoe details how his contract with Joe Gibbs Racing came to be and his talks with other teams.

4. Drivers to beat this weekend — on the surface

See the active drivers with wins on the series’ three current concrete-surfaced tracks. Does this provide an edge for these drivers, or will they have to dig deeper?

Driver	Bristol	Dover	Nashville	Total
Kyle Busch	8	3	-	11
Brad Keselowski	3	1	-	4
Martin Truex Jr.	-	4	-	4
Denny Hamlin	4	2	-	6
Kyle Larson	1	1	1	3
Chase Elliott	-	2	1	3
Joey Logano	2	-	-	2
Alex Bowman	-	1	-	1
Chris Buescher	1	-	-	1
Ross Chastain	-	-	1	1