Christopher Bell heads to Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in Bowmanville, Ontario where he will make the first road course start of his NASCAR Camping World Truck Series career on Sunday. If Bell is able to end the day with his No. 4 Tundra in victory lane, it would mark the third foreign country that the 21-year-old has been victorious in during his budding racing career.
The open-wheel dirt standout was crowned the first-ever POWRi Lucas Oil Midget World Champion in 2013-2014. The 12-event competition featured four races in New Zealand, four in Australia and four in the United States. Bell got his first victory on foreign land in December of 2013 racing POWRi midgets in front of 13,000 fans on Boxing Day at Western Springs Speedway in New Zealand. The Oklahoma native than went on to win the final night of racing in Australia at Lismore Speedway and captured wins at three of the four races on American soil to bring home the World Championship.
In preparation for this weekend’s event at the 10-turn road course north of the border, Bell completed two days of instruction at a road course school and competed in one road course in the ARCA Racing Series. He traveled to the Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving in Chandler, Ariz., in April to receive instruction from road course specialist Chris Cook to prepare for his ARCA Racing Series start at New Jersey Motorsports Park in Millville in May.
The schooling paid off as the road course rookie finished both practice sessions inside the top 10 and qualified eighth for the 67-lap event at New Jersey. He was able to work his way to the front of the field for seven laps just before the halfway mark of the race before surrendering the lead to hit pit road. After his stop, Bell was able to work his way back through the field and was in the runner-up spot when a single-car accident slowed the field for the final time on lap 47. Unfortunately, after going back green he got spun from behind by another competitor and after getting his Camry collected had fallen back to the 10th position and was unable to move forward in the closing laps.
Bell returned to work with Cook at Bondurant last month in preparation for Sunday’s 64-lap race. The talented youngster is hoping that the additional instruction will lead to the continued improvement of his road racing skills and that will allow him to bring home the checkered flag from Canada as he aims to conquer the racing world one country at a time.
KBM PR
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