BRISTOL, Tenn. – In a wild tire wear battle in The Last Great Colosseum, Christopher Bell prevailed to win the Bass Pro Shops Night Race on Saturday at Bristol Motor Speedway.

On the final restart, Bell took off on the second row, and as soon as the field entered Turn 1, he put the bumper to Zane Smith and completed the race-winning, three-wide move down the backstretch.

“Well, I’ll tell you what, I was nervous on the twos,” Bell said. “I didn’t know if I wanted to be on the bottom or the top, and whenever Brad picked the top didn’t really give me an option. I had to pick the bottom.

“All night long, I don’t know, old tires just really, really pushed up in the middle of the corners, so I was hoping that those guys on old tires would push up, and they did. They did, and I was able to get by or get underneath them.”

The effort marks Bell’s first Bristol win in the NASCAR Cup Series. Bell didn’t earn any stage points in the first two stages, but he was at the front when it mattered most. With the win, Joe Gibbs Racing sweeps the first three races of the NASCAR Playoffs. Bell dedicated the win on Sunday to political media personality, Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated earlier in the week.

“It wasn’t pretty there at the end, but we got her done,” Bell said. “Most importantly, this week has obviously been a very tough week, and there’s a lot on our mind. This one is for Charlie.”

RFK Racing’s Brad Keselowski finished second in the No. 6 Castrol/Travel Centers of America Ford. Keselowski dive bombed Bell on the final lap and put the bumper to his No. 20 DEWALT Toyota; however, it didn’t faze Bell. The strong performance is Keselowski’s first top-five since Iowa back in early August.

“Just the story of our season, just a 50/50 shot on the restart and I got the lane that couldn’t launch,” Keselowski said. “Just frustrating. We had a great car, great strategy, put ourselves in position to, if not win, at least have a really, really solid day, and on that last restart and just rolled the dice and didn’t get anything good.”

Smith earned his third-career top-five finish on Saturday with a third-place finish. NASCAR Playoff contenders and Team Penske teammates, Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano rounded out the top-five. Completing the top-10 was Corey Heim in his first series start, Carson Hocevar, Alex Bowman, Chase Briscoe and Ty Gibbs.

The field for the Round of 12 was set, and that storyline stayed hot all night long. The final spot came down between Team Penske’s Austin Cindric and Hendrick Motorsports’ Alex Bowman. Cindric was in command of the spot, but his car caught fire late in the race due to rubber buildup, and it took his team some time to put the flames out. Bowman got as close as one point, which happened to be for the lead, but with the aggressive tire wear, he just wasn’t able to stay up front at the end.

“Being out of tires at the end isn’t good, right, and honestly, we just played the hand that we could and stayed out,” Bowman said. “But if I had to pick one thing, our cycle tire restarts were just really poor. I couldn’t go at all. Zero grip. Our restarts on stickers or even when we’d put our qualifying scuffs on and stuff, it was fine, but cycle tires was really bad.”

Cindric said, “We had a great car tonight, and definitely with the long run speed and being able to keep tires on the car, I’m not sure I would have been able to tell you that was going to be the game to start the day, but just proud of the effort, and well earned Sunday off for the 2 car.

“Looking forward to hitting the Round of 12 hard. I want to keep advancing through. This team is capable of a lot.”

The Round of 12 field now includes: Denny Hamlin (+26), William Byron (+24), Kyle Larson (+24), Christopher Bell (+20), Ryan Blaney (+19), Chase Briscoe (+10), Chase Elliott (+5), Bubba Wallace (+1), Austin Cindric (-1), Joey Logano (-2), Ross Chastain (-2) and Tyler Reddick (-3).

New Hampshire Motor Speedway will play host to the opening race of the Round of 12. The Mobil 1 301 will broadcast live on USA at 2 p.m. ET on Sunday, Sept. 21.

Photo Credit: Mitchell White/TheFourthTurn.com