RACE INFO: The Production Alliance Group 300 at Auto Club Speedway begins at 5:00 p.m. ET on Saturday, March 16, 2019. The race will be broadcast live on Fox Sports 1, Sirius XM 90, and MRN Radio.

Christopher Bell – No. 20 Rheem Toyota Supra Preview The Production Alliance Group 300 at Auto Club Speedway

Bell at Auto Club Speedway: Christopher Bell made his first start at Auto Club Speedway in the NASCAR Xfinity Series (NXS) one year ago. Bell claimed the pole position and led the first few laps before a loose-handling condition developed. As the race progressed and the car was serviced, Bell began to earn back lost track position, but was collected on lap 105 when another competitor spun on the track. Despite heavy damage, the team got Bell’s Toyota repaired to make it to the end of the race to salvage a 21st-place finish.

It’s really big, wide, fast, there’s a lot of options and you can move around quite a bit. It’s definitely one of the race tracks I look forward to.

Phoenix Recap: Bell topped the charts in all three rounds of qualifying to earn his first pole starting position of the 2019 season. Bell was a dominating factor during the race, leading five different times for a total of 58 laps. Unfortunately, with 130 laps remaining, another competitor’s engine expired emitting a giant plume of smoke and oil on the track. Bell had no where to go and blinded by the smoke hit the slick oil and wound up in the wall. The damage was too severe to continue, resulting in a 30th-place finish.

Joe Gibbs Racing at Auto Club Speedway: JGR has 58 NXS starts at Auto Club Speedway and has earned nine wins, 22 top-five and 33 top-10 finishes. The championship-winning organization has won 11 pole awards with an average start of 10.9 an average finish of 12.0.

Christopher Bell: “I’m excited about Auto Club. Obviously, I don’t have a ton of experience there, but it’s a place I really enjoyed last year getting to go to for the first time. It’s really big, wide, fast, there’s a lot of options and you can move around quite a bit. It’s definitely one of the race tracks I look forward to. It’s a rough, slick race track and since It’s a 2.0-mile track you have a lot of downforce since your going so fast, so it’s slippery when the tires get old, so that makes it a lot of fun for us because you are kind of out there hanging on.”

Christopher Bell's Xfinity Series Stats