NEWTON, Iowa — Christopher Bell has seen this song before in 2026: So close, yet so far from victory.
Once again, Bell had a hot rod capable of winning the Iowa Corn 350 at Iowa Speedway, leading 108 circuits, only to watch another Joe Gibbs Racing teammate go on to celebrate, leaving him with his seventh runner-up result of the season — and fourth in the last five races, tying Harry Gant (1981) for most all-time without a win.
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Why was this one particularly more difficult to accept than most?
“Because we had control of the race and we were leading laps, had the pace to do it, had the track position to do it and we didn’t do it,” a frustrated Bell expressed.
As Bell became the dominant driver in the second half of the race, Adam Stevens, crew chief of the No. 20 car, called his driver to pit road for the final time on Lap 291 with Ty Gibbs in pursuit. Stevens opted to go with four fresh Goodyear tires while Tyler Allen, leader of the No. 54 bunch, gambled with a two-tire strategy.
In a caution-filled opening two stages, Stevens could almost guarantee there would be at least one additional caution to bunch the field together. There wasn’t, and while Bell got within striking distance of Gibbs, he finished 0.253 seconds from glory.
“I felt that was the right move,” Stevens told NASCAR.com, defiantly. “Obviously, none of us knew it was going to stay green the rest of the day. Once [Ryan Blaney] took four (tires), which we expected him to because he did rights at the stage, and seeing how he fell off, I didn’t think that was the winning move.
“I knew that the only car that could pass us with two (tires) was (Gibbs). Everybody else, if they chose to take two, would have still come out behind us, so we tried to open up the biggest gap we could knowing that we would come out in proximity even if he did take two. I thought that would have been enough, and that covered our bases on [Blaney] and set us up better for a downstream caution.”
Allen informed Gibbs when he was hitting pit road that the No. 54 car would be on pit road for a limited time.
“At that point, I thought it was the only thing that was going to get us around [Bell],” Allen said in the winner’s post-race press conference, “and then hopefully we could get enough laps where the tires equalized, and they couldn’t get by us.”
When asked if the No. 20 team should have elected to take two tires, Bell simply said, “Yeah.”
Bell was not surprised that two tires hung on for the victory. He did it earlier in the race, and even stayed out on track while the bulk of the field pitted during a Lap 140 caution. He hung on for the duration of Stage 2 to bank his fourth stage victory of the season.
Stevens had the notion of taking two tires during the final green-flag pit sequence. But ultimately, being the closest car to the lead on four fresh tires was hard to pass up, thinking it would pay off over the final stint.
“Sure, it was a thought, but it wasn’t the decision I made,” Stevens stated. “It was probably a 50-50 call, especially not expecting it to go fully green. I can’t say that was the wrong call to do that, but it’s not the one I made, and it didn’t work out for me.”
The tone of Bell’s 2026 campaign could be completely different had he visited Victory Lane on a few of his near misses. Instead, he has finished as the bridesmaid to all three Joe Gibbs Racing teammates this season and will enter next weekend’s race at Richmond Raceway (Sat., 7 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) on a 30-race winless drought.
Bell leaped four positions on The Chase grid at Iowa alone, however, and Stevens believes the fortune will soon flip.
“It sucks not to win,” Stevens added. “It sucks not to win every week, but you’re not going to win them all, and you’re not necessarily going to win them because you have the best car and you’re not necessarily going to win them because you have the best car and call the best race or vice versa or one out of the two. Sometimes, it doesn’t matter.
“Some things have to go your way, and by and large on the year, they haven’t gone our way. But the year is not over. I’m hoping the math evens out before it is.”
Bell is only four markers behind Chase Briscoe for fifth in the standings. But he’s growing weary of finishing second, though still thinks a 176-lap-led stomping at Phoenix Raceway in March was tougher to digest.
“It’s bad that I can start ranking them,” he said.