Christopher Bell will return to the wheel of a pavement Super Late Model for the first time since 2017 in the ASA national tour opener at New Smyrna Speedway on Tuesday night.
Bell will drive a No. 20 out of the Donnie Wilson Motorsports stable. The car is actually the backup to the primary used by Cole Butcher this week in the World Series of Asphalt.
Butcher has actually raced both cars this week, on Friday and Sunday, and said he liked both of them in contending for wins in both a 59 lapper and 35 lapper.
It’s a good car.
Bell last raced a pavement Super at Orange County Speedway in the CARS Tour in 2017. All of his previous starts in the platform came from 2015 to 2017 with Kyle Busch Motorsports. While at KBM, Bell was developed from his dirt background into a pavement racer by crew chief Bond Suss, who is now the general manager at Wilson Motorsports and a Toyota development program manager.
It’s a reunion for the two and not an entirely surprising one as Suss has said for a year now that he has wanted to talk Bell back into driving a pavement Super. For much of the year, Bell ran into the ban Joe Gibbs Racing placed on non-NASCAR racing but with that policy no longer in place and with a free car, Bell is back in a pavement Super Late Model.
The other notable part of this story is that Chris Gabehart is joining the team to crew chief for Bell. Gabehart is a longtime short track devotee, former CRA champion driver, car designer and now the competition director at JGR.
Qualifying for the Clyde Hart Memorial is at 4 and the race is set for 7:30. It’s available to both TrackTV and FloRacing subscribers.
