By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service

BELL IS OPTIMISTIC ABOUT NEW HAMPSHIRE

LOUDON, N.H. – So far the Joe Gibbs Racing team has posted a perfect 3-for-3 effort in the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs, sweeping the opening round with three different team drivers – Chase Briscoe at Darlington, S.C., Denny Hamlin at Gateway, Ill. and Christopher Bell last week at Bristol, Tenn.

Christopher Bell, driver of the #20 DEWALT Toyota. (Photo by Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images)

Bell holds the unique distinction this weekend of being the defending winner in all three national races at New Hampshire, although he is only competing in Sunday’s Mobil 1 301 this trip to the Northeast. Speaking with the national media on Saturday in advance of the second round opener, the 30-year-old Oklahoman sounded both confident and optimistic.

“It’s pretty impressive,” Bell said of the current Toyota pace. “I don’t think any of us expected the Round of 16 to start the way that it did. It’s just a credit to the Joe Gibbs Racing folks and Toyota and Toyota Racing Development (TRD). It’s not an overnight thing.

“It’s a lot of effort put in by a lot of different people that have gave us the performance that we have and then once you have that performance it comes down to the teams executing the races and doing the right thing. … I don’t think that any of us pictured it going the way that it has, but we know that we’re in a good spot.”

ROUND TWO RE-START

Hendrick Motorsports may be especially happy to see the Playoff Round 2 re-set considering the team’s drivers were among the most successful on the grid during the regular season.

Byron won his second consecutive Daytona 500 on the way to his first Regular Season Championship. Kyle Larson won three races and their teammate Chase Elliott has a victory as well. All four drivers – including Alex Bowman – qualified for the four-driver 16-race Playoffs and three of them have now advanced to this 12-driver second round of Playoff competition.

Both Byron and Larson conceded the Joe Gibbs Racing first round sweep was a little surprising considering how strong Chevrolet drivers have been. But they also say the mental re-set for this Playoff round may be just what they need.

“The start of the Playoffs was a shock to us as good as we’ve run all year,” said Byron, who will start fifth Sunday – the top qualifying Chevrolet.

“There’s been very few races where I felt I’d run worse than eighth, honestly and then felt like in the first round we were scratching and clawing for top-10s. The first round was a shock to us. We’ve put a lot of work into these three races and putting our best foot forward.

“There’s still a lot of season left though. It’s kind of a marathon in and of itself. The way this format is, you just have to keep advancing and hopefully you’re at your best when it counts.”

“We had to kind of reset our goals and expectations to kind of survive and advance and we did that flawlessly. But now it’s kind of time to step it up and I feel like so far this weekend we’ve done a good job of that so we’ve just got to keep it going.”

FRIESEN’S WARM WELCOME BACK TO TRACK

NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series owner-driver Stewart Friesen made his return to the garage this weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway after a nearly eight-week absence recovering from serious injuries he incurred while racing in a Super DIRTcar Series race in Canada.

A popular figure in the sport, he smiled and conceded it’s been a warm welcome back. Still using crutches and undergoing treatment for a fractured pelvis and multiple breaks in his right tibia Friesen has a long recovery ahead but being trackside at New Hampshire was good therapy for the soul.

“It’s good,” he smiled, acknowledging the greeting he’s received. “I’m at least mobile enough to be here, it’s only four hours from home and it’s great to be back and see all these guys, not necessarily on our team even but the people I’ve met in the last 10 years doing this. It’s good to see everyone in the garage, so many people have reached out and said they were thinking of us. It’s been so cool to have the support of the racing community.

“It’s very, very humbling knowing how many people are thinking of us and supporting us. The people at Toyota have been awesome. Makes me feel proud to know we’re in a community like this that supports each other.”

Friesen qualified for the 2025 driver’s championship with a victory at Michigan – only four weeks before his crash. Now, however, Kaden Honeycutt is driving the Halmar-Friesen Racing No 52 Toyota truck. Honeycutt had qualified for the driver’s championship on his own merits and his effort also keeps Friesen’s truck competitive for the owner’s title.

Honeycutt’s seventh-place run in Saturday morning’s race was good enough to advance both he and Friesen’s the No. 52 truck to the next round of competition.

Honeycutt is ranked eighth in the driver’s standings and the No. 52 truck is ranked seventh in the owner’s championship. 

While Friesen is clearly happy to be back for a NASCAR race weekend, he was hesitant to commit to much of the remaining schedule at this point in his recovery, although he said he’d like to be trackside at the Phoenix championship weekend in November. He has no timetable for his return to the cockpit, however, while working through the rehab and managing the pain he still suffers from.

“I’m doing everything they say to do,” Friesen said, “I’ve got great, strong guys behind me and I’m so grateful.”