March 18, 2024

Bell wins Truck Series championship

HOMESTEAD, Fla. (AP) — Kyle Busch celebrated one championship already this weekend when driver Christopher Bell captured the Truck Series championship.

It was the first career title for Bell, who turns 23 next month and was the favorite to win the title Friday night at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Bell won five races this season driving a Toyota for Kyle Busch Motorsports, and led the series in nearly every statistical category.

He wrapped up a second series driver championship for Busch.

Bell finished second to Chase Briscoe, who raced to his first victory in the last event for Brad Keselowski Racing. The team is closing after this race, and had a shot to end its run with a title behind Austin Cindric. But Cindric was beaten by Bell for the championship, so the team settled for the race victory with Briscoe.

Briscoe is a Ford Performance development driver, the first driver signed to the new program announced in January. His win was the first by a Ford Performance driver development racer since the program’s inception.

Johnny Sauter finished third but fell short in his bid to win a second consecutive title. Sauter announced a contract extension earlier Friday to drive for GMS Racing, the team he won the title with last year.

Cindric finished fifth and didn’t have any of the issues others had threatened after his controversial advancement into the finale last week. He had an incident with Ben Rhodes that cost Rhodes a spot in the championship race, and some drivers had claimed there would be retaliation against Cindric at Homestead.

Two-time Truck Series champion Matt Crafton finished sixth. Only Bell, Sauter, Cindric and Crafton were racing for the title in a winner-take-all format.

Toyota won its 10th manufacturers championship, and fifth in a row.