There was a time in the not too distant past that Christopher Bell and Carson Brown were throwing sliders in Micro Sprints at Millbridge.
Past was prologue, as it turns out, as their history repeated itself on Wednesday night in the ASA STARS race at Tri County Motor Speedway. As he usually does, Bell came out on top again.
But the journey was more newsworthy than the destination as Bell, Brown and Ty Fredrickson delivered a tremendous Super Late Model race amongst them in the decisive moments of the ebb Logistics 250.
Bell, driving a No. 20 for Wilson Motorsports, first took the lead from Brown and his Anthony Campi Racing No. 81 on the third stage restart. Leaning on their respective experience on dirt, they were basically sliding each other on both ends of the race track, before Bell took the lead for good.
Fredrickson also joined the fray over the final stage, all three drivers running three different lanes, and just putting on a compelling show. In the end, Bell won his return to Super Late Model racing in just his first start since last February and second over this decade.
“He set the tone,” Bell said of the sliders. “I’m like, ‘Go get it, buddy.’ Carson did a great job. It was so fun watching him get through the field. He was magnificent through traffic.
“So yeah, on the restart, there were a couple times, a couple of the restarts where I got a pretty good start and I rolled beside him and I’m like, ‘Ooh, I think I might have something here.’
“And then yeah, I kept getting really good drives off the bottom of Turn 2. And then I sent it in and I said, ‘All right, we’re going to play here.’ And yeah, I thought he was probably a little bit faster than me for a while and then I started gapping him. Overall, it was a really fun race.”
Brown has a lot of admiration for Bell and really enjoyed their glove’s off battle too.
“We were throwing sliders all over the place, swapping ends,” Brown said. “He would throw one in 1 and 2. I’d throw it in 3 and 4. Just a lot of fun. I can’t really hang my head over it. I qualified 12th just wanted to be top-5 by the end of Stage 1.”
Instead, he was the leader by the end of the stage.
“I was very maneuverable,” Brown said. “The track was right where we needed it. I felt like we lost all of that in Stage 2 when we put our tires on. I couldn’t really slide, or take the corner very well.
“We made contact when I sent it off into 1. He entered high and just tried to block my slider, which is fair game, and it got the right front a little bit.
“Some of that is probably on me, but I think that just affected some of our turn. We were tight center, snapping off, and I still thought it would come back to me like it did in the first stage it really never did.”
What about the 17-year-old son of Wisconsin racing mainstay Dan Fredrickson?
“We were really loose on that first stint,” Fredrickson said. I lost a lot of track position, but my dad made really good calls in the pits, getting us right next to (Brown) and (Bell),on that little green flag run before the end of the second stage. So we were just pretty decent.
“I was a little tight. I tried to stick my nose in there a few times on the leaders but we were just a little too tight. A bunch of different lanes you could do, a bunch of combinations.”
Bell just won the Southern 500 over the weekend at Darlington Raceway and is well-regarded as one of the handful best race car drivers in the country across every discipline. For Brown and Fredrickson to have this race with him was a point of pride to both.
“There’s a lot of pride,” Brown said. “I thought that was honestly, just on a fun level, it was great and boost of confidence being able to learn from a guy like that — it’s super important and it’s not very often you get to race a Cup Series driver. It was super fun racing.”
Bell raced with Wilson Motorsports general manager Bond Suss when he first transitioned from dirt to pavement with Kyle Busch Motorsports. He enjoyed winning with him and his son Brock again too.
The elder Suss told Short Track Scene Bell would race the Snowball Derby with them if he wins the Chase for the Championship this year but the Joe Gibbs Racing driver pushed back.
“I don’t know; I never said that,” Bell said. “So for me, Late Model racing is about going to tracks that I like and enjoy. I would love to do Winchester again, but I’m not going to be able to do that in the near future.
“I didn’t know anything about Tri-County and Bond asked me to come and do it. I said sure and now I love this place. So it’ll be about going to tracks that I like.”
Never say never.
ASA STARS ebb Logistics 250 September 9 2026 Tri County Speedway
Matt Weaver is the owner and founder of Short Track Scene. Weaver grew up in the sport, having raced himself before becoming a reporter in college at the University of South Alabama. He also has extensive experience covering NASCAR, IndyCar and Dirt Sprint Cars.
