Toyota and Joe Gibbs Racing have a quandary on their hands that’s a good one, but one that needs to be sorted out before next season nonetheless.
Baseball fans know all about the concept of a hot prospect being blocked. If, for instance, your most promising minor leaguer plays shortstop, but you’ve already got an All-Star shortstop and a big money third baseman, the prospect has nowhere to play until something about the status quo changes. That’s no different than the situation facing Joe Gibbs Racing right now, as it has the hottest driving prospect in all of stock car racing in Christopher Bell — and he is most definitely blocked.
The Joe Gibbs Racing lineup for 2019 is set. Kyle Busch is a superstar and potential 2018 NASCAR Cup Series champion. Denny Hamlin is on the fringe of contender status and has one of the most stable sponsorship situations in the sport with FedEx. Erik Jones and Daniel Suarez will only be going into their third years at the Cup Series level and have shown too much promise to jettison.
Where the baseball analogy breaks down just a little is in the sense that JGR’s options are limited. It can’t trade a driver away like you’d move a third baseman. And there’s an additional level of pressure to get it all sorted out, because there’s a manufacturer to consider as well.
Toyota has seen talented young drivers like Kyle Larson and William Byron slip away in the past. It doesn’t want to see Bell leave, and neither does Gibbs.
“We have to keep him,” Gibbs said to SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (via NBC Sports). “Just put it that way. We have to. I think Toyota has a lot invested. We do. I really think he’s a future star. You never know when you step up to the next level, that’s a huge step. We think he’s well on his way. I think he’s showing everyone what his abilities are and his talents.”
He is indeed. Bell heads to Watkins Glen this weekend riding a streak of three consecutive wins, something no XFINITY Series regular has done since Dale Earnhardt Jr. in 1999. Barring some major misfortune, he’s going to win that series’ championship this year, as he’s the most talented driver and almost always has one of the fastest cars in any given week.
Bell is too humble and too aware of how racing can deal you unexpected setbacks to think that way aloud, but he has to know that’s the case. He’s also made it pretty clear what his preference would be for 2019.
“I don’t feel like I need another year of XFINITY,” Bell said to NBC Sports and other media on Wednesday. “I think the best way for me to win at the Cup level is to get there and start trying at it. I feel like I’m different than the guys that have been coming up here over the last couple years, and everyone is saying that they’re moving guys up too quick, and the difference is that I’m 23 years old, I’m not 18, 19 or even 20 years old.
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“I’ve got a lot of racing experience, and right now I feel like I’m in my prime as a race car driver. If the opportunity comes to go Cup racing next year, I definitely don’t want to waste another year in my prime, so to speak, of not learning and not getting that experience of Cup racing.”
Despite that, Bell maintains that he’ll stick with Joe Gibbs Racing and Toyota, mentioning that they’ve already given him opportunities he never dreamed he’d get. The big question is what if someone else, maybe a Ford or Chevrolet team, offers him a Cup seat for 2019?
Gibbs and Toyota surely know that’s a possibility. They managed to do this dance just last year, stashing Erik Jones with Furniture Row Racing for a season. The problem is that the 77 car got shuttered, and now Martin Truex Jr. is searching for sponsorship for 2019, meaning the likelihood of a resurrected second Furniture Row car is now more remote than ever.
Unless, of course, Toyota and JGR can make something happen. If the four Cup Series drivers are squared away with sponsors, who’s to say the team and manufacturer couldn’t work a little mojo and find someone to come to the table with Bell to Furniture Row? This certainly isn’t the best business environment to make one feel comfortable about a move like that, but if you can convince companies that Bell legitimately has a shot at being the Next Big Thing in NASCAR, it’s not impossible.
Somewhere, in an alternate universe, Larson is driving a Toyota in the Cup Series right now, winning races and making his team and sponsors smile. That’s not something anyone supporting Bell wants to see become a “What if?” scenario with him, but unless there’s some way to keep him being blocked from a shot at the top NASCAR series, it just might. There’s less than half a year left to figure it out.