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“It wasn’t pretty there at the end, but we got her done,” said Bell, who led only 12 laps in his 13th career victory. “We just know that any given week, it could be us, and it hasn’t been for a long time. But Bristol, baby, tonight it’s us.”

He joined with . Alex Bowman, Austin Dillon, Shane van Gisbergen and Josh Berry were eliminated from the 10-race championship run.

“Just so excited about the start to the playoffs,” team owner Joe Gibbs said.

Bell finished 0.343 seconds ahead of Brad Keselowski, who was trying to end a 51-race winless streak.

“Just the story of our season,” Keselowski said. “Just a 50-50 shot on the restart, and I got the lane that couldn’t launch. Just frustrating. We had a great car, great strategy and on the last restart, we just rolled the dice and didn’t get anything good.”

Zane Smith finished third, followed by Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano.

There were a season-high 14 caution flags for 137 laps as drivers and teams struggled to get a handle on a new right-side tire with excessive wear that required more pit stops.

The playoff drama spiked with 40 laps remaining when a fire erupted under Austin Cindric’s No. 2 Ford. His team was able to extinguish the flames, but Cindric lost several laps in the pits and re-emerged outside the top 30.

His 30th-place finish still was good enough for the 12th and final transfer spot into the second round.

“Moving on,” Cindric said after finishing 30th. “I believe in this team. I believe in myself. I have not been driving as well as I am now in the Cup Series.”

Bowman ran as high as second after rebounding from a spin on the 100th lap. He would have bumped Cindric with a victory but finished eighth and came up 10 points short of advancing.

“I don’t think you can really point at something that cost us,” said Bowman, who benefited from a pit crew overhaul after sufferin through some disastrous stops in the past two races. “Our back was against the wall coming in here. We knew it was going to be a tough thing to do.”

Seeking his first Cup victory, Ty Gibbs led a race-high 201 of 500 laps but bungled while trying to reach the pits for his final green-flag stop, losing major time in his No. 54 Toyota.

First out

With smoke billowing from the cockpit and flames shooting out from his right-front tire, Berry made an eye-catching exit as the first driver eliminated. The Wood Brothers Racing driver and ran as high as third before a fire erupted on his No. 21 Ford.

“Man, just so disappointing,” Berry said. “That was going to be a lot of fun. We were moving forward. It’s been a tough couple of weeks, but it hasn’t been because of performance. We executed well and ran well, just haven’t had the finishes.”

Berry, whose playoff debut , finished last in all three races of the first round. “I don’t think you could ever script three last-place finishes in the ways that we’ve gotten them,” he said.

Uncharacteristic outburst

Bell is typically low-key, but the Joe Gibbs Racing driver blasted his team and its strategy with a vulgarity-laced tirade after finishing seventh in the prior race at Gateway. Bell, who is winless in 24 races and without a top five since July, said he was frustrated after watching teammates Denny Hamlin and Chase Briscoe win the first two races of the playoffs.

“If I was consistently leading laps and in position to win, then I would never have been frustrated,” Bell said. “But the fact of the matter is I haven’t been in position to win races, I haven’t led laps. My teammates are leading it seems like almost every lap, and they’re getting the results. It’s less about winning races and more about being in position to do well, and we haven’t had that.”

Up next

The NASCAR Cup Series playoffs will open the second round Sunday, Sept. 21 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. It’s the first Cup race at the 1.058-mile oval since June 2024 and the first playoff race in Loudon, New Hampshire, since September 2017.

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