Candidly, Tuesday night in the Clyde Hart Memorial 200 didn’t feature many of the things Christopher Bell remembered fondly about his time in Super Late Model racing.
Making his first start in a pavement Super since 2017, Bell finished sixth but it was more about survival than anything else. First, since he did not participate in the three practice sessions the day before, Bell had to go out first in time trials with only five courtesy laps and started the race from the last row as a result.
He was involved in two early incidents, needed to spend time on pit road to repair his body, and saw a tremendous amount of carnage unfold in front of him all race. Specifically, there was an ASA STARS record 17 cautions with race control having to start counting caution laps in the middle of the night.
“Well, I didn’t expect it to be long, but it ended up being a freaking Cup race length race,” Bell said with a laugh.
It was a question during NASCAR Media Day at Daytona about his conditioning on Wednesday afternoon.
Bell raced for Donnie Wilson Motorsports in a reunion with crew chief and general manager Bond Suss, who spearheaded his development as a pavement short tracker with Kyle Busch Motorsports.
Does Bell want to do it again at some point this season?
“I don’t know,” Bell said. “It is all going to depend on the schedule. I was really excited about yesterday, being just a one-day show, being able to not spend multiple days there practicing – that was one thing I didn’t care about late model racing as a kid was just how long the events were.
“If the schedule works out, I would.”
