Bell's Chili Bowl Race of Champions win extra special

Christopher Bell won his second consecutive Chili Bowl Invitational Race of Champions, and fourth overall, but this one was especially meaningful.

It marked the first time he had won a race in a car out of his own shop, and it came at home in the star-studded preliminary, that serves as the opening salvo of the Chili Bowl.

His car was fast, but Bell was also fortunate in that he was the fastest overall in qualifying and drew a '0' for an invert meaning the field started straight up. Shane Golobic marched from fourth to second but just couldn’t overcome the track position in 25 laps.

For Bell, his fourth win in Race of Champions left him a little emotional, because it was something of a career check mark he got to cross off his list.

“Yeah, it's special, that's for sure,” Bell told Motorsport.com. “It’s just, I mean, I don’t know how many people have heard this or I have said it a lot but doing this on your own, it’s just so much more gratifying and a lot more trying and stressful.

“Last year, whenever I went to (Tulsa) Shootout in my own Micro (Sprint), it was just unlike a feeling I've ever had. The highs are high, I’ll tell you that.”

So can he win Chili Bowl on Saturday night with this car?

"That was a lot better during the race than yesterday through practice," Bell added. "I honestly didn't have the feel I wanted to and am accustomed to having around this place

"Then, in hot laps, I just felt like if we could get the car to drive how I expected it to drive and need it to drive, it's going to be really good. So I thought I drove pretty good there in the race and I thought the track conditions were honestly pretty representative of what we're going to get on Saturday night. It got really wide and the curb was very sticky. It wasn't really super built up, but it was very sticky.

"So we'll see. I've been in this position a lot where I've won the Race of Champions and it doesn't mean anything for Saturday. So there is a long way to go but I will enjoy this today."

What did Golobic need to get around Bell?

For one, he was driving the car used by Ryan Bernal as an experiment, and after a rough practice day, it finished.

“For one, that car made it through a race without wrecking, so that was good,” Golobic said. “That one has had a rough couple of days but it felt good and I was comfortable. I fit in the seat better. That’s big for me. But we’ll keep tinkering on this other one and see what we can do with it. …

“I don't think it was like the greatest racetrack there for that race but I'm sure they'll work on it here and it's always tough if Christopher gets out front. He’s probably going to stink it up anyways. It's just going to make for a boring race because he’s so fast. But yeah, happy with the week so far. Happy that car rolled back in in one piece.”

Corey Day crashed on Lap 8 and will need car owner Willie Kahne to put it back together before his qualifying night.