Bell makes it three in a row

Published 7:12 pm Sunday, March 9, 2025

By Tribune News Service

Tribune News Service

Christopher Bell made it to Victory Lane for the third straight week.

The 30-year-old NASCAR driver held off Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson in a thrilling finish to the Cup Series’ Shriners Children’s 500 at Phoenix Raceway on Sunday.

It marks the third consecutive race in which Bell is victorious, and the Joe Gibbs Racing standout becomes the first Cup Series driver to win three straight races since Larson in 2021.

“How about that one, race fans?,” an energized Bell said on pit road after the race. “Oh, my gosh, man. Whenever you’re sitting there dreaming it up, that’s about as ugly as it gets. You put the red tires on, you’re like, All right, what I don’t want to happen is go 20, 30 laps, get a yellow. That happened. Then we went 10 more laps, had another yellow.



“It was all about who could get clear on the restart. Neither of us could. We were racing really, really hard there coming to the line. (Joe Gibbs Racing) ran 1-2, how about that?”

Hamlin earned a second-place finish after battling Bell for the lead late. Larson finished in third, Josh Berry fourth and Chris Buescher fifth.

Katherine Legge became the first woman to start in a Cup Series race since Danica Patrick in 2018.

Piloting the No. 78 Chevrolet for Live Fast Motorsports, the Mooresville-based NASCAR team, Legge passed several cars after spinning by herself to bring out the race’s first caution. She recorded a P30 finish after initially starting at the tail of the field.

“It was a really rough start,” Legge told reporters outside the infield care center. “We made some changes to the car overnight, and they were awful. I was hanging on, I was so loose, and we kept making adjustments and making the car way more stable for me. And at the end there, I think we were relatively quick compared to the field. I wish we hadn’t made the changes, but we’re trained to find some pace, and we found it throughout the race. But it was a rough start.

“Baptism of fire. There are a lot of positives to take from it. Obviously there were mistakes made, but I learned so much and hopefully I get to come back and do it again.”