Turning Point: Will Christopher Bell join JGR teammates in Championship 4?

Here’s what’s happening in NASCAR with Talladega Superspeedway in the rearview and Sunday’s Xfinity 500 at Martinsville Speedway up next (2 p.m. ET, NBC, Peacock, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App).

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1. Will Christopher Bell join JGR teammates in Championship 4?

After starting out the season hotter than any other driver, there’s a chance Christopher Bell could miss the 2025 Championship 4 — while watching two of his teammates compete for the title in Phoenix. Currently in position to advance, will the No. 20 driver hold onto his ticket?

Christopher Bell was all but penciled into this year’s Championship 4 just four races in — and now there’s a real possibility he misses it outright.

Of course, it wasn’t without good reason that Bell appeared destined for NASCAR’s championship event all the way back in March. The Oklahoman won three of the season’s first four races, with his No. 20 group looking as dialed in as ever and clearly looking to prove a point after last fall’s Martinsville heartbreak.

With another chance to advance to Phoenix Raceway’s title tilt on the line this weekend, will Bell leave Martinsville set to battle his already clinched teammates in the desert, or will he come up short at the short track once again?

Currently third in the playoff standings, Bell holds a 37-point lead above the cutoff line; a decent cushion but hardly a guarantee. His probability to advance out of the Round of 8 stands at 81.5%, which is strong and allows him to control his own destiny to a degree, precariously balanced mainly on his performance at Martinsville. But missteps tend to happen at Martinsville and could derail him quickly, which would leave him watching his JGR teammates vie for the championship next weekend.

Expect JGR and Toyota to do everything in their power to ensure that No. 20 car is still title-eligible a week from now.

“Of course, that’s the focus,” said JGR competition director Chris Gabehart last weekend at Talladega Superspeedway. “I think realistically, we left Talladega in as good a position point-wise as we could hope for, and Martinsville was a fantastic track for us in the spring. Christopher Bell has won at Martinsville, he’s won a cut-off race at Martinsville, and he’s Christopher Bell. I don’t need to say any more than that. That guy is tenacious, and (we) look forward to making it three JGR cars in the final at Phoenix.”

While yes, he is Christopher Bell and, as Gabehart mentioned, we’ve seen him do this before, Bell’s results overall at Martinsville are a mixed bag. Though he secured a walk-off win there in 2022 and posted a runner-up finish earlier this season, his overall performance there recently has featured just two top-10 finishes in his last five attempts and just four total in 11 starts.

A routine top 10 would likely do it, but Bell has yet to make a top-10 finish a routine expectation at Martinsville.

Adding to the pressure is the dynamic of fellow contenders nipping at Bell’s heels — they’re all incredible. Kyle Larson, sitting just a point behind and possessing the tiebreaker edge, along with Regular Season Champion William Byron, 36 points below the bubble, create an additional layer of urgency with how strong Hendrick Motorsports traditionally is at the Virginia short track. These drivers’ proximity in points means Bell’s advantage could evaporate quickly should he falter or stumble. (This obviously extends to Chase Elliott as well, but he’s not a concern for Bell, points-wise.)

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“I’m sure there’s some mathematical scenario where one of us (or Larson) could get pointed out, but it would take probably a race-ending disaster prior to the end of Stage 1 for that to happen, and then it still might not happen,” No. 20 crew chief Adam Stevens told reporters via conference call Tuesday. “So you know, I think realistically that that’s correct, that you have four guys that are in a must-win and you have two guys that are not in that situation at all. So we’re going to have to spend the day, us and the 5 (of Larson), really focused on each other and probably both hoping that if one of us doesn’t win, that it’s certainly not one of those bottom four. But at the end of the day, you can only control what you can control, and you’ve got to prepare the best car and try to run the best race you possibly can.”

Bell’s reputation for overcoming adversity offers a counterbalance to the concerns, because he’s great at controlling what he can control. He himself has defied the odds, notably in 2022 when he overcame a 33-point deficit entering the Round of 8 finale at Martinsville, securing a win and punching his ticket to the Championship 4.

Whether Bell can maintain his grip on the ticket to Phoenix, or if he will be relegated to in-race spectator as two of the best Joe Gibbs Racing has to offer battle for the championship, will be answered on Sunday.

For now, Christopher Bell occupies a precarious position perched between playoff security and elimination, with how his 2025 season will be remembered — despite a legendary stretch to open it — hinging on what happens Sunday at “The Paperclip.” But he’s proven to us before, under less favorable circumstances, that he’s more than capable of getting the job done when the pressure intensifies.

So, will Bell do what he does best and execute with it all on the line this weekend, putting three Joe Gibbs Racing cars in the ’25 Championship 4?

Yeah, we can imagine that.

2. Martinsville moment all but guaranteed Sunday — who will make it?

Every autumn, amid the scrape of fenders and the deluge of brake dust, you can count on it like clockwork — something unforgettable is going to happen at the half‑mile paperclip-shaped track as the NASCAR Cup Series finalizes its championship contingent.

In its place as penultimate race on the schedule, the track has been the gateway to championships and the graveyard for contenders, and this year’s script offers the sharpest cast yet, with six remaining heavyweight drivers chasing two open seats in the 2025 Championship 4.

Five of the last six years have produced a driver surging in from below the cutline to clinch at the track. With three of those below the bubble being past champs (including the past three titles spread among Team Penske’s duo) and the other being this year’s Regular Season Champion, the talent is certainly there for one of them to turn Sunday into his own personal Hollywood-like moment.

Penske’s Ryan Blaney is building a legacy on these kinds of moments, winning this particular race and advancing to the Championship 4 in both 2023 and 2024 to reach the finale. Over his last 13 Martinsville starts, Blaney hasn’t finished worse than 11th, with his 4.57 average finish in the Next Gen era there leading the sport. Sunday is unpredictable, but he’s the surest bet to make the cinematic magic happen.

His teammate Joey Logano is fighting to extend his own pattern of October defiance, however, and there’s essentially only room for one of them to move on. The 2018, 2022, and 2024 champion has finished in the top 10 at Martinsville a dozen consecutive times (the fourth‑longest streak ever) but hasn’t won there since doing so in remarkable fashion in 2018. He’s just 38 points back, but a top 10 or even a top five likely won’t be good enough — he’ll need to win. This is often when Logano and the No. 22 team are at their most dangerous, thriving when there’s no alternative in sight.

Then come the Hendrick Motorsports curveballs. Kyle Larson stands moderately safe at plus-36, while his teammates sit below the bubble, provisionally set to not advance. William Byron, the Regular Season Champion and Martinsville victor twice in the Next Gen car, enters 36 points out and fading after two brutal playoff weeks. Byron hasn’t found the top 10 since Kansas; Martinsville is his last chance to restore a year that was once his to dictate.

Larson’s situation is much steadier on paper — six straight top‑six Martinsville finishes and a 2023 win there — but context complicates it. He hasn’t won since spring Kansas, a 22‑race drought that matches the longest of his Hendrick tenure. Only one point separates him from Christopher Bell, meaning that any new winner from below the cutline could end his hopes if No. 20 outpaces him (though Larson holds the tiebreaker).

And then there’s Chase Elliott, looking to go full circle a half-decade later. Five years ago, he arrived at Martinsville with everything on the line, 25 points out of the Championship 4. He won, headed west to Phoenix, and won that, too. The deficit is larger this time — minus‑62 — but his comfort with Martinsville’s rhythm remains exceptional, and he’s a constant presence at the front of the field there.

Bell represents the next lever that could shift the landscape of the playoffs, with JGR either holding serious command of the Championship 4 with three cars in or making it a flip of a coin if he misses and there are two outside contenders. At plus-37, he owns a strong sense of security but his own past, however, suggests why no lead is safe: He was minus‑33 entering Martinsville two seasons ago, won, and advanced. If a driver below the cutline wins Sunday, only one of Bell or Larson could reach the final, and Larson’s Martinsville repertoire is probably a little stronger.

And this scenario is far from hypothetical, with Sunday’s win almost certainly coming from one of the remaining playoff drivers (perhaps even one of the two locked in, who are both strong here as well and have incentive to do so). Hendrick, Gibbs, and Penske have combined to win the last 14 Martinsville races, and it’s extremely hard to see that shifting in such a pivotal 15th.

Six contenders, two vacancies, one historically volatile half‑mile.

Nobody wins Martinsville by accident, but the track has always chosen its own storytellers — the ones who run hot, brake late and refuse to concede the corner. By sunset, someone will reach the Championship 4, while someone else will see their season dissolve in a shower of sparks and regret.

And when that happens, the world will have another entry in Martinsville’s unique historical archive; a new chapter for the pile of shoves, fingers wagged and improbable triumphs that make the sport’s smallest track its most consequential stage.