In Las Vegas, everyone is a legend in their own mind and in their own right. In the American epicenter of gambling and entertainment, mere Quixotic fantasies can quickly turn into a remarkable part of someone’s own personal history. And in some cases, what happens in Vegas can make you a legend well beyond Vegas.
Such is what’s at stake this weekend, as the NASCAR Cup Series makes its first trip of the season to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the Pennzoil 400. After three wins in a row in a torrid start to the 2025 season, Christopher Bell is on the precipice of NASCAR history as he seeks to become only the ninth driver in the sport’s modern era to win four races in a row. Though four in a row is something that hasn’t been done in 18 years, Bell’s chances of pulling it off are fairly high — especially given what occurred the last time NASCAR raced in Vegas.
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Last fall, Bell was the class of the field as he led 155 of 267 laps, but finished second to Joey Logano after the No. 22 team successfully gambled on fuel mileage. That finish had massive implications for the season — putting Logano in the Championship 4 and keeping Bell out of it — which will no doubt fuel the driver of the No. 20 this weekend as he looks to turn his win streak into one of NASCAR’s most memorable.
Where to watch the NASCAR Cup Series at Las Vegas
When: Sunday, March 16, 3:30 p.m. ET
Where: Las Vegas Motor Speedway — Las Vegas
TV: FS1
Stream: fubo (try for free)
Starting lineup
Michael McDowell won the pole for the Pennzoil 400 in qualifying on Saturday, posting a lap of 28.883 (186.961MPH) to earn his first pole of the 2025 season and the first in team history for Spire Motorsports. Ryan Blaney will start at the rear of the field after cutting a tire and crashing in practice.
- #71 – Michael McDowell
- #22 – Joey Logano
- #2 – Austin Cindric
- #8 – Kyle Busch
- #43 – Erik Jones
- #48 – Alex Bowman
- #21 – Josh Berry
- #24 – William Byron
- #38 – Zane Smith
- #5 – Kyle Larson
- #17 – Chris Buescher
- #60 – Ryan Preece
- #20 – Christopher Bell
- #45 – Tyler Reddick
- #11 – Denny Hamlin
- #9 – Chase Elliott
- #10 – Ty Dillon
- #16 – A.J. Allmendinger
- #1 – Ross Chastain
- #23 – Bubba Wallace
- #4 – Noah Gragson
- #3 – Austin Dillon
- #99 – Daniel Suarez
- #19 – Chase Briscoe
- #77 – Carson Hocevar
- #41 – Cole Custer
- #6 – Brad Keselowski
- #88 – Shane van Gisbergen (R)
- #54 – Ty Gibbs
- #42 – John Hunter Nemechek
- #47 – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
- #34 – Todd Gilliland
- #7 – Justin Haley
- #35 – Riley Herbst (R)
- #51 – Cody Ware
- #12 – Ryan Blaney
Storyline to watch
In looking to win four in a row, Bell would join Cale Yarborough (1976), Darrell Waltrip (1981), Dale Earnhardt (1987), Harry Gant (1991), Bill Elliott (1992), Mark Martin (1993), Jeff Gordon (1998) and Jimmie Johnson (2007) in setting what has become NASCAR’s standard for long winning streaks since the sport’s modern era began in 1972. But of that group, Bell’s win streak carries particular echoes of the one that Elliott had to start the 1992 season.
After crashing out of the Daytona 500 while racing for the lead — just as Bell did in the closing laps in this year’s Great American Race — Elliott started his tenure driving for Hall of Famer Junior Johnson with a bang. He would win the second race of the season at Rockingham, followed it up by beating Alan Kulwicki in a photo finish at Richmond, and then rattled off two more convincing wins at Atlanta and Darlington to give him four in a row in the first five races of the year.
Not long ago, Kevin Harvick came close to matching Elliott’s feat in 2018 when he won three in a row at Atlanta, Las Vegas and Phoenix immediately following that year’s Daytona 500. But his bid for four in a row was quickly ended in Fontana, as an early crash on the backstretch deprived him of his chance at winning four of the first five.
For Bell, a streak of four in a row would carry major implications the rest of the season, as five out of the eight drivers to have accomplished that win streak have gone on to win the Cup championship the same year. Interestingly, however, Elliott was not one of them — His only other win of 1992 came in the season finale at Atlanta, a race where he would finish second in the points standings to Kulwicki by 10 points, a then-NASCAR record for the closest championship battle ever.
NASCAR news of the week
- NASCAR has made a revision to its open exemption provisional rule, stating that in the event that more than 40 cars are entered in a race, the field will automatically be expanded to 41 cars and the team that requests the open exemption provisional must use it regardless of where they qualify. The open exemption provisional was used by Trackhouse Racing to give four-time Indianapolis 500 champion Helio Castroneves a guaranteed spot in the Daytona 500 in February.
- Two open teams have announced that they will be entering Martinsville. After racing in the Clash in February, Bowman Gray legend Burt Myers will make his official Cup Series debut driving the No. 50 for Team AmeriVet. Meanwhile, Garage 66 will field their No. 66 for Casey Mears, who will race in NASCAR for the first time since the 2019 Daytona 500. Mears was a full-time Cup driver from 2003 to 2016, earning one career victory in the 2007 Coca-Cola 600.
- Speaking with the Los Angeles Times, NASCAR West Region president Dave Allen shared that while the sport is not abandoning the Southern California market, they remain in a “holding pattern” in regards to redeveloping Auto Club Speedway in Fontana. NASCAR has hoped to build a new half-mile short track on the site of Auto Club’s former two mile oval, which was torn down after its final race in 2023, but the sport currently lacks a timeline as to when and how that will happen.
- 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports issued a reply to NASCAR’s appeal brief in their countersuit against the race teams, accusing the sanctioning body of using “overblown rhetoric and hyperbole” in claiming that the teams willfully violated antitrust laws by engaging in anticompetitive collective conduct in negotiations over NASCAR’s new charter agreement. An appeal hearing on the ruling that granted 23XI and Front Row charter status for this season has been set for May 9.
Pick to Win
Christopher Bell (+400) – Not only does Bell come into this race coming off three in a row and his performance at Las Vegas last fall, but he’s been terrific at this track in general over his last four starts. Since 2023, Bell has three top five finishes at Las Vegas, a stretch which includes two runner-up finishes and 216 laps led. Given that and his performance to start 2025 — and really, since the start of the playoffs in 2024 — it’s very difficult for me not to expect Bell to take his start to the season from hot to historic.