“I feel, honestly, like a million bucks. I think I used the term ‘opportunity of a lifetime,'” said Joe Gibbs Racing‘s #20 driver Christopher Bell to RoadandTrack.com before entering the championship round last year at Phoenix Raceway. Even though the racer had seen the playoff rounds quite often, it was only his second venture into the unknown, entering the final four in 2023.

But his opportunity of a lifetime quickly turned awry when a catastrophic brake failure caused the #20 Camry to run into the outer wall, killing his title aspiration in a jiffy. In fact, misfortune and ill fate took their toll on the driver the past two seasons and it looks like there’s more bad news headed his way.

While the new Netflix docuseries coming out and the hype surrounding it gripping the community, the JGR driver had to come to terms with some harsh truth no driver wants to hear.

Christopher Bell painfully bears the brutal truth about his superstar stature

Despite the bad luck and his team’s poor pit management, 28-year-old C. Bell certainly has a name for himself as a solid championship threat. Consistency has always been one of his strong points. While the veteran duo of Denny Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr captured the scene last season, Bell did what both of his teammates couldn’t; get past the eliminations and make it to the final fray with a stellar win at Homestead-Miami.

His consistency, along with his deep dirt racing roots, has him covered when most of the competition falters under pressure. But what isn’t on his side is luck. The 2017 Truck Series champion has earned an infamous reputation for choking out in the final rounds and this has hurt his credibility as a driver to some extent.

After back-to-back disappointments, C. Bell has more bad news headed his way. Ahead of the much-awaited Netflix Docuseries – NASCAR: Full Speed, Bell was left with somber thoughts as the harsh reality of things was exposed to him out in the open. “When I first came on to this project. They were like, alright these were the guys that we expect to you know continue to around the round of eight and stuff because you have to make a plan to make choices,” said the host who sat down with Bell. 

In the X post, the driver painfully asked, “ I wasn’t in that plan, was I?” To which, he said, “You were you were never in that plan. Imagine that.” 

Fortunately, that’s not how his competition thinks about the JGR driver. Instead, Bell has earned a solid reputation, the HMS ace, Kyle Larson, says, “In my eyes, he’s definitely not an underdog, you know, because I’ve raced with him for a decade and seen how extremely good he is.” He even went to the extent of saying that he expected the driver to be the guy to beat from lap one. 

Watch this story: Ross Chastain unmasks Netflix’s rebellious and unfiltered NASCAR

Hopeful for 2024, Christopher Bell says he has “unfinished business”

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The JGR driver is the only driver to make the Championship 4 in each of the last two seasons. His consistency in the postseason is unreal, not to mention the fact that he won three straight poles to blast his way into the playoffs and a fourth later on. Bell had six pole awards in 2023, leading the Cup Series. After his Phoenix disappointment, the driver now seems to be at peace. After all, he can’t change what has already been done.

Speaking to NASCAR, before the award gala, the driver reflected on his Phoenix fallout, “I mean, it was certainly disappointing, but it is what it is.” Briefly mentioning his team’s ill-fated campaign, he further said, “I definitely feel like there is unfinished business and you know what, regardless of if we won the championship or not, I would have felt that way, just because we left so many races on the table that could have had top five, top threes, possibly wins. And so I left Phoenix feeling very calm, and I was looking forward to what’s ahead of us. So I feel good. I feel really good, and I love my team, and I think that we have not reached our ceiling yet, so that gives me confidence.”

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