Christopher Bell won NASCAR’s marathon Cup Series race at New Hampshire on Sunday.
Bell won the rain-delayed race ahead of Chase Briscoe and Josh Berry as the entire field was using rain tires. The final segment of the race after an over two-hour rain delay was run on rain tires as NASCAR wanted to get the race restarted as soon as possible following the red flag for rain.
Bell took over the lead on lap 242 of the scheduled 301-lap race and led the rest of the way. He retained the lead for the final 64 laps after two cautions flew for spins in the final 10 scheduled laps.
The race ended up taking more than six hours to complete and lasting 305 laps.
It was the second time this season that part of a Cup Series race had been run with rain tires. The Richmond race this spring started with teams on rain tires before NASCAR stopped the race for teams to put slick tires on.
And just like Richmond, NASCAR was heavy-handed in its rain tire management. Teams weren’t permitted to change to slick tires if they felt the track was dry enough and were only allowed to change sets of rain tires when NASCAR allowed.
Had the race been called at lap 219, Tyler Reddick was set to get his second victory of the season. Reddick pitted on lap 156 and inherited the lead when he didn’t pit at the end of the second stage. A flurry of cautions to start the third stage helped keep Reddick in the lead before it started raining.
