Christopher Bell managed to hang on through an overtime restart to win his second NASCAR Xfinity Series race of the season at Darlington Raceway on Saturday (Aug. 31).
Bell started from the pole and dominated most of the afternoon, but lost the lead late to teammate Sheldon Creed, still looking for career win No. 1. Creed was able to pull away and looked to be cruising to his first win before a caution came out for AJ Allmendinger, setting up the overtime finish.
Bell and Cole Custer came out of the pit lane first and second, with Creed losing time on his stop and exiting third. On the restart, Bell and Custer came together on the backstretch and nearly crashed, but both were somehow able to save it and charge through the final lap and a half to the checkered flag.
Behind Custer in second was a heartbroken Creed in third. Chase Elliott and Sammy Smith rounded out the top five.
“I really need to see a replay of it,” Bell said after the race. “That was wild, for sure. Darlington’s just such a tough racetrack, and off of [turn] 2, whether you’re on the bottom or the top, it flushes you to the wall, and then you kind of get a little bit of a wiggle coming down.
“Once again, I feel terrible for Sheldon. You know, to essentially win the race – he passed me on the long run there – and then to lose the lead on pit road is a big bummer.”
Creed couldn’t hold back his emotions after the race.
“I lost one the same way a few years ago here,” Creed said. “This has always been a really good place for me and I’ve always loved racing here. Man, I don’t know if I could be any better than that. I feel like I put in one of my best performances today.
“I don’t even know what the caution was for. But man, it’s a bummer. … It just hurts when they get away like that, especially here at one of my favorite places.”
When the race began, it didn’t stay green for long after Parker Retzlaff missed a shift on the original start. He slowly trudged down pit road but eventually came to a stop, warranting the first caution of the afternoon on lap 4.
In the laps following the ensuing restart, several drivers encountered issues. Joey Logano‘s day came to a quick end with an engine issue on lap 12. One lap later, Riley Herbst had a tire down and pounded the wall. Anthony Alfredo had a similar issue just two laps after that. However, no cautions came out for any of the three issues.
The second caution…
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