DARLINGTON, S.C. -- Christopher Bell is finally second-to-none this season.
Bell's crazy, frustrating season of seven second-place finishes without a victory at last came to an end with a win at the Southern 500 on Sunday night.
The Joe Gibbs Racing driver passed defending NASCAR champion Kyle Larson with 18 laps left at Darlington Raceway and held on to win the Chase-opening race and break a winless stretch of 33 races dating to Bristol last September.
"Darlington is the epitome of NASCAR," Bell said. "This is better than a dream come true."
It was his first win in 15 career Cup races at Darlington and pushed him into second in the Chase standings behind teammate Denny Hamlin.
"No off weeks. right back to work next week at Gateway," he said. "I still feel I'm going to have win more races if I want to" win the championship.
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.
Crew chief Adam Stevens tried to keep Bell focused as the runner-up finishes -- along with the driver's frustration -- grew. It was important for him to understand that him finishing second wasn't because his team wasn't doing everything it could to succeed. "You have to really come into each weekend with a clean slate, and he's done a fantastic job with that," Stevens said.
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.
Larson thought more racers would've stayed out of the pits on the final caution to give him some cover and distance before the fresh-tire drivers got going. "But Bell got to second so fast, I was straight into defense," Larson said. "Not able to run the lines I ultimately wanted to to take care of my tires."
Three-peat thwarted 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's troubles
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.
"It was certainly not the finish we were hoping for," Hamlin said. "We certainly made gains on it all day."
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.
He's still leading, 12 points in front of teammate Bell.
Other Chaser issues
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 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.
Up next
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.