Christopher Bell couldn't ask to run much better than he did during his first two visits to the Comp Cams Short Track Nationals at I-30 Speedway in Little Rock.
But he did.
Bell, a 19-year-old from Norman, Okla., who finished second at the event each of the past two years, earned his biggest sprint car victory Saturday night by dominating the second half of the main event after taking the lead on a masterful pass at the midway point.
"Great car, great track, great race," Bell said said, beaming during the postrace celebration on the frontstretch. "We were bad in hot laps. The guys changed everything, though, and it was money after that."
Bell led the STN main event each of the past two years, his first two visits to the event, before finally taking his first I-30 checkered flag in Friday night's preliminary feature. He started fifth on Saturday and was still in fourth place when the race was red flagged on lap 14 when Dalton Davis of Millington, Tenn., flipped in turn 4.
Bell moved up to second behind A.G. Rains of West Memphis by the time caution flew again on the 19th lap for a spin by Joe Wood Jr. of Oklahoma City.
The restart saw Bell dive underneath Rains in turn 1 and slide in front of him exiting turn 2. He quickly put distance between himself and the field, and was never seriously challenged throughout the second half of the 40-lap race.
Bell said he noticed Rains running near the top of the track as he came up to him.
"That's where I had been running at the beginning of the race," Bell said. "So I moved down there on the restart and it stuck really, really nice. I was able to run in there really hard, drove it through the middle and was able to slide it up there in front of him.
"From there, we just got better and better as the race went on. The car was probably the best it had been at the end of the race. The farther I moved the wing back, the better it got."
Bell's future in the sport is a source of much speculation in the racing community. He is in contention for his second consecutive USAC midget national title and last week he won a 150-lap race in North Carolina driving an asphalt late model fielded by Kyle Busch Motorsports.
Bell will only say he hopes to know where he will racing in 2015 by early January.
But, dirt sprint cars will remain part of his schedule, Bell said Saturday.
"Sprint cars are where my heart's at," said Bell, who collected $15,200 with the victory.
Brian Brown of Grain Valley, Mo., the Thursday prelim winner, started on the pole and built a lead the length of the straightaway in the opening 10 laps. But on the lap-14 restart, he "bicycled" in turn 2, bouncing onto two wheels and had fallen to fourth place by the time he regained control.
"I just hit the hole wrong, plain and simple," a dejected Brown said after the race. "You'd hit it, and it would throw you around, and I just hit it wrong."
The near-capacity crowd approaching 8,000 roared its approval as Rains streaked past Brown for the lead. No Arkansan has won the event since Benton's Tim Crawley did it in 1998. Rains became the first in-state driver to lead the STN main event since Crawley in 2008.
But Rains' engine issues made him fairly certain his lead was in jeopardy with Bell on his rear bumper for the restart on lap 19.
"Yeah, I knew I was pretty much a sitting duck," Rains said. "I don't know if it was a that [sparkplug] or moisture in the distributor, but the engine was really bogging down."
Rains faded to ninth.
"But we had a good week," he said. "They knew we were here, for sure."
Aaron Reutzel of Clute, Texas, outbattled Brown to take second. Brown was third, 1997 winner Wayne Johnson of Knoxville, Iowa, was fourth and Kevin Swindell of Germantown, Tenn., took fifth. Rounding out the top 10 were Gary Taylor of Snohomish, Wash., Dusty Zomer of Sioux Falls, S.D., Stevie Smith of New Oxford, Pa., Rains and Matt Covington of Glenpool, Okla.
Sports on 10/27/2014