- Throughout their teenage years, Kyle Larson and Christopher Bell squared off against each other on dirt tracks across the United States.
- At Las Vegas, Larson knew throughout the NASCAR Cup race the 28-year-old Bell was the driver he would have to beat.
- While Bell might have possessed the advantage over Larson in previous races, that wasn’t the case Sunday.
For Kyle Larson and Christopher Bell, the South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway was in many ways a replay of their racing careers.
Throughout their teenage years and even into their 20s, they squared off against each other on dirt tracks across the United States despite Larson residing in California and Bell hailing from Oklahoma. The knowledge they gained during that time, whether it was in sprint cars or at the Chili Bowl Midget Nationals in Tulsa, Okla., provided the two with the information they needed to duel each other for Sunday’s NASCAR Cup victory.
“He’s always been a really fair, clean racer,” Larson said about Bell after defeating him Sunday by 0.082 second. “We’ve had numbers and numbers of battles in stock cars, but mostly in dirt track. I’m typically the one that is the aggressor or the aggressive one in our battles. Probably push the limit of being dirty sometimes.
“For him to continue to race me clean, I definitely have a ton of respect for him.”
Larson showed that respect by giving Bell a thumbs up after Sunday’s 267-lap race.
“In my opinion, he’s one of the best race car drivers in the world and could do everything that I get to do outside of NASCAR if his team (Joe Gibbs Racing) would let him,” Larson says.
Four days before Larson won his fourth Cup race this season and earned a berth in NASCAR’s championship round at Phoenix Raceway, he completed his rookie orientation program for the 2024 Indianapolis 500. Two days before Larson’s ROP at Indy, he claimed the High Limit Sprint Car Series championship at Lincoln Park Speedway in Greencastle, Ind. The 11-race series Larson founded last year with his brother-in-law and four-time World of Outlaws Series champion Brad Sweet runs on weeknights.
At Las Vegas, Larson knew throughout the NASAR Cup race the 28-year-old Bell was the driver he would have to beat. The two were the top lap leaders with Larson setting the pace on seven occasions for 133 laps and Bell five times for 61 laps.
The 31-year-old Larson admits he enjoys racing someone in the Cup Series that he’s competed against since his dirt track days.
Expect to see plenty of battles of the next decade between Kyle Larson, pictured, and Christopher Bell.
“I think his story … me being with Toyota, then not, moving forward with them, them kind of pushing him along after they felt like they lost an opportunity on me, I feel like I take pride a little bit in that, that he is in the Cup Series maybe partly because of me,” Larson says. “But then, too, he kicked my ass for a few years straight, like every race. I don’t know if I ever beat him. He made me work really hard to get better as a driver, especially on the dirt track stuff.
“We’ve had our run-ins along the way, just tight racing for wins and stuff. Now I feel like we actually get along and we talk quite a bit.”
While Bell might have possessed the advantage over Larson in previous races, that wasn’t the case Sunday, and the dejected Toyota driver left the 1.5-mile track trying to figure out what he could have done differently to defeat the Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet driver.
“I don’t know what else I could have done,” Bell said immediately after the race. “That was my moment to make the Final Four.”
Bell now goes to Homestead three points below the cutline, while Larson knows he’s vying for a championship at Phoenix in three weeks.
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