Las Vegas – Christopher Bell is looking for a historic fourth victory in a row on Sunday when the Nascar Cup series goes down to Sin City for Pennzoil 400.
With a victory, Bell would be the first driver since Jimmie Johnson in 2007 to win four straight cup races. Only eight drivers have reached the urgency in NASCAR’s modern era (after 1972) and five of these drivers continued to win the championship, including Johnson in 2007 and Jeff Gordon in 1998.
Bell, 30, has never won a race on Las Vegas Motor Speedway, although he ended up in second place in two of the last three races held on the track.
With Las Vegas as the first middle track on the 2025 schedule, the race gives both Bell in its No. 20 Toyota and the rest of the field its first real opportunity to measure his car on the style that Race tracks that much of the schedule are questioned. Some of these races are among the most important on NASCAR’s schedule, including October’s South Point 400 in Vegas.
“Vegas is a real barometer for the intermediate products,” Bell, Joe Gibbs Racing -Standout, told Nascar Wire Service. “It’s the same way as the last track style we haven’t been to yet this season. It’s an important race because you have many points to get or lose on the intermediate tracks, but what makes Vegas even more important is that it is in the round of 8 (of the playoffs).
“That race, when you come back in the fall, is extremely important to have a really solid point day and fight for a victory. That fall Vegas race is everything, and there is no better attitude for it than spring Vegas race.”
Perhaps the biggest threat to ending Bell’s Hot Streak on Sunday is the 2021 Cup Series Champion Kyle Larson, which has won on “Diamond in the Desert” three times since he joined Hendrick Motorsports before the 2021 season. Larson’s first victory with Hendrick came to Las Vegas in March 2021 and Larson has made two of the two of the 400 in October 2023 and Pennzoil 400 in March 2024.
“I think since he joined Hendrick Motorsports 2021, it has probably been our best racing track,” Larson said. “Getting some victories, I think two second places at that time have also been really good. The track is good but coming to the city and having fun on the strip and everything it has to offer, it probably makes it one of my three favorite races to come to.”
Like Bell, Larson is also looking forward to getting a real feeling for the kind of car he has this season on a middle track.
“How the schedule is now, you go to Daytona, then you go to Atlanta and then you go to a road course,” said Larson “You almost have to wait a whole month to realize how your season can be and how you will be in speed. I think all of us teams are really, really happy to get on the right track, get back in the more part of the schedule.
Despite Bell’s hot start to the season, it is actually William Byron who enters Sunday’s race in the score with 13 points over Bell. Byron won the season opening daytona 500 in February and got Poland on the way to sixth place in Phoenix, in addition to being in second place at the first Daytona Duel and at the circle in America on March 2.
Joey Logano is the latest winner at Las Vegas, as his victory at South Point 400 in October 2024 drove him to his third Nascar title.
-Vika Revar, Media at Field Level
