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TULSA, Okla. -- Christopher Bell didn't view his inability to hold the lead Saturday night at the Chili Bowl Midget Nationals as a mistake. He was putting lessons learned into action. The lesson: Don't beat yourself. His approach worked out, just not as he had planned. After Kyle Larson had passed him in lapped traffic on lap 27 of the 55-lap race at the Tulsa Expo Center, Bell remained in position to earn his second consecutive Chili Bowl title. All Bell had to do was take advantage of a Larson hiccup. And he didn't even need that. Larson's engine hiccupped and then went up in a billow of smoke with about 13 laps remaining. Enter Bell into the lead, and on his way to earning the victory in the race he cherishes the most. As the 2017 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series champion heads into the Xfinity Series with Joe Gibbs Racing, he might need to remember days such as the 2018 Chili Bowl. He'll find himself in lapped traffic on the stock car side. And he'll need to play the same game, trying to judge how big his lead is and when to make a move and when to play it safe. It might not always work out, but with Bell's talent -- he won five truck races last year on the way to the title as well as an Xfinity race at Kansas -- he shouldn't need to race with desperation if he knows he has a car to get the job done. "I didn't make a mistake at the point that Kyle got by me," Bell said. "I was watching the [video] board whenever I was in open race track and I noticed that I had gapped him a little bit, so I stopped running as hard. "Once I got to lapped traffic, my focus went away from the big screen and on to what the task at hand was. I guess he got to me like that and slid [by] me. I just took it too easy in lapped traffic." How in the world does a driver take things "too easy" and it is the right move? Especially in a 55-lap race? "Instead of attacking the lapped cars, I tried to bide my time and make smart moves," Bell said. "And then Larson ate me up. ... It worked out [for him at the time]. "But I've lost a lot of these races running into lapped cars, too." The racers in the midgets don't have spotters, so getting around lapped traffic is much different than in NASCAR, where a driver can often be told where the lapped car has run when getting lapped. Larson said it is normal that the second-place driver in a race such as the Chili Bowl can sometimes have an advantage going through lapped traffic. "Not a mistake -- a misjudgment [by him], maybe [because] ... in traffic, you have to be quick to think and sometimes when you're the leader, your reaction time has to be a lot quicker than the guy in second," Larson said. "You can see what's going on [when in second] and counter to that. I just was able to capitalize on him on making not a bad decision, but I guess a wrong decision and able to get to the lead." Even though Larson was able to pass him, and even if Bell had finished second, the race Saturday showed that Bell, 23, is continuing to mature as a racer. And maybe even more interesting, he showed his confidence afterward by saying he was disappointed because he didn't get to race Larson for the victory. "Man, I'm disappointed," Bell said. "That's the right word. I feel like Kyle got robbed, I got robbed and the fans got robbed." Many drivers probably wouldn't say something like that after winning a race they attended annually as a kid, dreaming to have their name aside the all-time greats who won the event, which attracted 345 midget racers Saturday. But Bell showed his raw emotion and competitive spirit. He and Larson put on a show for just three laps in the one-on-one match race that determined the pole. Larson nudged Bell out of the way to take the pole, and the crowd roared as Bell spun out and limped around. He parked his car soon afterward and smiled, not seeming to have any anger. "I wasn't frustrated at all," Bell said. "Whenever I idled around there after I spun out and I saw the crowd was all on their feet, that made me happy. "The track surface wasn't great for racing [at that point], so I was glad that the crowd thought that was exciting." Bell won't get as much of an opportunity to race dirt tracks as his NASCAR schedule will now consume 33 race weekends a year with the Xfinity Series. He'll take what he has learned in both sprint cars and stock cars to his next quest. "He's good in every car," Larson said. "In midgets, he's especially good because he's so smooth. He doesn't really make any mistakes. He makes us all here step up. "When it comes to a midget, there's nobody better than Bell."
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