Bell passes defending NASCAR champion Larson to win the Southern 500 to start the Chase

DARLINGTON, S.C. (AP) — Christopher Bell passed Kyle Larson with 18 laps to go and held on to win the Chase-opening Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway on Sunday night.

Bell had seven second-place finishes this season and had not won since last September at Bristol, a stretch of 33 races. But the Joe Gibbs Racing driver opened up a lead of nearly a second on his teammate Ty Gibbs to win for the first time on the track “Too Tough To Tame.”

“Oh, my gosh, man," Bell said. “This has been a long time coming.”

Gibbs finished second and Tyler Reddick, a five-time winner this season, was third. Chase drivers accounted for nine of the top 10. Ryan Blaney was fourth, followed by Larson, Chase Briscoe, Josh Berry, Bubba Wallace, Joey Logano and Ryan Preece.

Berry was the only non-Chase driver in that group.

Larson gambled during the sixth and final caution, staying on the track while other competitors including Bell went into the pits for fresh tires.

And for a bit, Larson's bet look like it might pay off as he opened a sizeable lead on the restart and forced Bell and the others to come get him. Bell eventually did, moving low on the track to put Larson in his rearview mirror.

Briscoe was looking to make a bit of history with his third straight Southern 500 — only Hall of Famer Jeff Gordon had ever won more with four in a row from 1995-98 — and he fought off a pit-road penalty for running out of fuel at the end of stage two that took from the lead to 20th.

But he could not keep pace with Bell at the end.

Hamlin, the top seed in NASCAR's Chase, had started the final stage in the top five when he got hit from behind on lap 237 by Michael McDowell and his car struck the wall in turn four.

Hamlin immediately told his crew, “The toe links are gone.” But the incident did not draw a caution and Hamlin had to keep racing, falling to 20th as he and his pit crew waited for the chance to fix the damaged Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.

While the toe links were not damaged, there were extensive repairs and Hamlin was a lap down. Hamlin finished 18th.

Hamlin came into the race with a 25-point lead over second-seeded Ryan Blaney. The rules of NASCAR's postseason changed this year, with all 16 drivers competing in all 10 playoff races without eliminations.

Hamlin wasn't the only one of the 16 Chase competitors to have problems. Hendrick Motorsports William Byron was in position for a top 10 finish when he spun out with what he believed was a flat tire. After a trip to the pits, smoke billowed out of Byron's Chevrolet and he went back to the garage to end his day.

Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing had high hopes with two of its three drivers, Chris Buescher and Ryan Preece in the Chase. But Buescher could not gain any momentum at Darlington and rode in the back of the pack for most of way.

Preece, who won his way into the postseason with a victory at Daytona last week, pledged to continue to be aggressive because as the 16th seed, his team had nothing to lose. That strategy worked well as he rode in the top 10 for most of the first half of the race. He couldn't sustain it, though, and ended 10th.

And while 23XI co-owner Michael Jordan watched from the pits, his two Chase drivers in Reddick and Wallace went from running 1-2 at the end of the first stage to falling out of the mix down the stretch.

The Chase continues with its second race at World Wide Technology Raceway outside of St. Louis in Madison, Illinois. Denny Hamlin won the playoff race there a year ago.

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