"There's going to be lot of wrecks": Christopher Bell anticipates a frightening weekend at Atlanta playoff race

Christopher Bell has recently shared his thoughts on his expectations from the 2024 playoffs. Bell secured a spot in the playoffs early into this year's campaign after securing a victory in the Shriners Children's 500 at Phoenix Raceway in March.

Christopher Bell, the driver of the #20 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing, has built an impressive NASCAR career over six years. Bell has notched up 35 race victories across NASCAR’s top divisions, including nine Cup Series wins, with his most recent triumph coming at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Alongside his Cup success, Bell claimed the 2017 Truck Series championship and was also crowned the regular-season champion the same season.

The Cup Series gets into the playoffs this Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway with the highly anticipated Quaker State 400. Ahead of the race, Christopher Bell shared his thoughts on the 2024 playoffs. In an interview with Frontstretch, Bell said:

"We know it's not going to be very good but um with that being said we should race really good uh tomorrow so I'm looking forward to that. These races are always hair-raising because you don't know how it's going to go, and there's going to be a lot of wrecks. Hopefully, you can get through them."

On being asked what Bell thinks about working his way up from the back as he starts the first playoff race from P26, this is what he had to say:

"I mean it's doable and in these races, there's so much strategy that goes into it. Tires don't really matter so it's easy to take fuel only, stay out even so uh, track position will flip a lot and so we'll be able to get to the front,"

Christopher Bell secured a top-five position in the regular season battle this year. However, the #20 driver has had a really good season thus far, as he is currently P2 in the driver standings, only eight points behind HMS ace Kyle Larson.

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Christopher Bell differentiates NASCAR’s racing and entertainment

NASCAR has been consistently making changes to the Cup Series schedule in recent history. In 2023, the sport witnessed the first edition of the Chicago Street Race, and this year's campaign saw the inaugural Cup race at Iowa Speedway and the return of the Brickyard 400.

However, the motivation behind these decisions has reportedly been a cause for concern. While some of the changes are good for the sport, some are good for the viewership.

In a recent interview with The Athletic's Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi on the Dirty Mo Media YouTube channel, Christopher Bell was asked to shed light on the aforementioned issue.

“It just feels like we are in a little bit of an identity crisis, and I can’t, I didn’t… someone else in our industry use that term and I loved it, and I’m like 'That is so true,'" Bell said. [4:18]

“If you ask different people on what a good race is, you’re going to get different answers, and you have true motorsports people that understand what a good race is and how the best win race or whatever how a race should be. And then you ask other fans who aren’t as educated in the sport and their view of it is going to be much different. So yeah, we’re in a weird spot right now.” he added [4:50]