Who… should you be talking about after the race?
Darkness denied him a chance to race for the win a year ago, but this time, there was plenty of daylight despite a brief pre-race shower. Christopher Bell passed Chase Elliott with 42 laps to go in the Ambetter 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway and, from there, easily controlled his own destiny.
At one point, Bell told crew chief Adam Stevens that he had the race under control and didn’t need the lap counts the team was feeding him through the radio. The No. 20 crew complied, and Bell took it from there, cruising to his first win of 2022.
Bell didn’t have a great car early on, but his team made improvements throughout the day and their driver found himself able to close and pass in traffic when it counted. It was a very good race for the Joe Gibbs Racing and Toyota camps with five Camrys in the top 10: three of them from the JGR stable and two more from 23XI Racing.
And don’t forget Bubba Wallace. Entering the weekend, Wallace’s NASCAR Cup Series efforts at New Hampshire produced less than stellar results, earning an average finish of 23.8. This time around, Wallace took the bull by the horns and dropped his Cup Series-best qualifying effort to date, starting fourth. He stayed inside the top 10 all race long, finishing second and 10th in the first two stages before coming home a strong third.
What… is the buzz about?
Don’t look now, but Silly Season is here. It started off slowly a few weeks ago with Martin Truex, Jr. announcing that he’ll return to the No. 19 next year, but it really ramped up this week. Tyler Reddick, on the heels of his first career win at Road America, announced that he’ll join 23XI Racing in 2024, leaving Richard Childress Racing after a NASCAR Xfinity Series title and at least one Cup win. Whether that puts Reddick’s seat in jeopardy for 2023 is still a question mark.
A day later, Petty GMS Motorsports announced the team will part ways with Ty Dillon after this year, which fueled even more speculation: will Dillon take over his grandfather’s No. 8 as early as next year? That seems unlikely, as RCR has had opportunities to add the younger Dillon to the stable before and hasn’t. It’s possible Petty GMS is considering an alliance change for 2023 which means it doesn’t need to run Dillon to benefit from RCR.
Still up in the air: The No. 10. Aric Almirola said in a weekend press conference that…
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