Kelly Crandall
Mar 12, 2025, 12:14 PM ET
Christopher Bell bought a boat.
It was something he never thought he would do. Bell even told his wife, Morgan, there was no way. But things had changed. Actually, it was Bell who had changed, and that's because Joe Gibbs Racing placed restrictions on its drivers' extracurricular activities, particularly when it came to racing on dirt.
"I really had to change my life," Bell told ESPN. "I changed my lifestyle and the hobbies that I enjoyed doing. And I had really started to get in a pretty comfortable routine by the end of last year."
Bell is a dirt racer. The Oklahoma native's dirt background led to Toyota discovering and signing him to its driver development pipeline.
Over time, Bell transitioned to pavement, became a NASCAR champion in the Truck Series, and is now a perennial Cup Series contender. So, when Bell wasn't contesting NASCAR races, he kept himself occupied and fulfilled by running on dirt. At one time, the car that Bell won the Chili Bowl (dirt's equivalent of the Daytona 500) in sat inside his home.
Without dirt racing, though, he had to find other outlets. Without dirt racing, Bell had to work through managing his emotions between NASCAR races, his dalliances in the dirt serving as a mind cleanser or distraction, and without them he would fixate on the last race.
"I golfed there for a little bit," Bell said. "I still watched dirt races, especially through the summer months because there is dirt racing every night, but it had gotten to the point where I had accepted that dirt racing might have been a time I'd moved out of, and it wasn't a part of my current life.
"It took me a while to accept that. I had a little bit of jealousy toward dirt racers (because) I wanted to do that, for sure. As time moved on, I had become content with where I was in life."
Team owner Joe Gibbs had good intentions when he made the decision. Bell describes the mandate as a result of a chain of events that made everyone in the team consider what is in the best interest of the drivers and the organization.
It started in late 2022 when D.J. VanderLey suffered a C4 spinal cord injury in a Micro Sprint race in Texas. He was paralyzed from the neck down. Bell competed in the same race.
In the spring of 2023, Hendrick Motorsports driver Chase Elliott broke his left tibia in a snowboarding accident one day before track activity in Las Vegas. A little more than a month later, Elliott's teammate, Alex Bowman, suffered a fractured vertebra in a dirt race.
"So, there was a couple things that happened and it made sense," Bell said. "It made sense that they said, 'Hey, if that happened to us, we'd be in deep trouble.' Joe Gibbs Racing and Hendrick are different. They're different companies. They have different levels of financial responsibilities. When people say, well, 'Kyle [Larson] is able to go race. Why?' Well, he's in a different situation than what I am. Gibbs to Hendrick is not apples to apples."
And so, Bell did what he needed to do to move on from dirt racing. In November, however, it was given back to him. Gibbs lifted the restriction after a "culmination of pressure" broke through as Bell, Ty Gibbs and new hire Chase Briscoe, also a dirt racer, continued to express interest in running dirt events.
"I was like, 'What? Is this real life? Are you being serious right now?'" Bell said.
It didn't take long for him to get back behind the wheel. His first race was in December in Du Quoin, Illinois. He won. From there, Bell went to the Tulsa Shootout in January. Again, Bell won, and did so in a photo finish over Larson. At the Chili Bowl later that month, Bell finished 10th but won the Race of Champions invitational the same week. Last month, Bell ran at Volusia with the World of Outlaws ahead of the Daytona 500.
Bell anticipates contesting 15 to 20 dirt races this season. His upcoming schedule includes stops on the High Limit Sprint Car Series tour this weekend in Las Vegas and their event in Texas next month.
However, there is another reason besides passion (and mental health) that Bell values running dirt races: seat time translates to NASCAR success. It's why, he says, he feels the best he ever has as a driver.
"You can't simulate race time," Bell said. "Being in the seat and making those split-second decisions that you have to make all the time, you can't deny that, if you don't race for a period of time, your decision making is not going to be as sharp as it could be."
Given the past three weeks, it's hard to argue with him. Bell and the No. 20 Gibbs team have won the past three NASCAR Cup Series races at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Circuit of the Americas (and Phoenix Raceway.
"He's a race car driver," said Adam Stevens, Bell's crew chief. "For him to stay sharp, he needs to drive a race car, and cutting simulator laps just doesn't do that. You wouldn't ask a professional golfer to lock his clubs in the closet for three months over the winter and show up at the first tournament. I bet he wouldn't play very well.
"But for him to compete and stay sharp, he has to be on a racetrack racing. There is some risk that comes with that, but it's to our benefit. It's not only to our risk. I think staying sharp and enjoying yourself is the other component. He doesn't have a lot of other hobbies. He loves to drive race cars. He loves to work on race cars, drive race cars, watch race cars, and that's what he loves to do. When he has downtime that's what he wants to do."
Bell chases his fourth consecutive victory Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, a track that he feels owes him one after he was thwarted on strategy in the past two fall races there having led a combined 216 laps, finishing second in both events. Considering he'll be on the dirt in the days beforehand, you wouldn't bet against him.
