By: Mitchell Breuer

Before Sunday, the last time the NASCAR Cup Series was at Bristol Motor Speedway, Leavine Family Racing nearly took home a win with their former driver, Matt DiBenedetto. Entering this weekend, a lot of the focus shifted towards DiBenedetto to see if he could finish the job this time around, however not much was made about his former team.

Despite this, it was fair to say that expectations should have been a little high for the team, especially since their new driver, Christopher Bell, had won at Bristol last season in the NASCAR Xfinity Series and captured his first top-10 in the Coca-Cola 600 a week ago.In the end, it was an impressive day for Bell.

He started the 500-lap race in 35th and quickly moved through the field, placing himself in 21st by the first competition caution. After avoiding wrecks in stage two, the driver of the No. 95 was able to get himself in the top-10 after staying out during the segment break. From there, Bell hung inside the top-15 before taking advantage of the final restart to finish ninth.

“We struggled a little bit early, but we continued to make progress on the JBL Camry,” Bell said.“I felt like for a time there we had a contending car, which was good.”

The result and overall performance in the race is a sign the team is heading into a positive direction, which hasn’t always been the case this season. Before NASCAR’s extended break in action, LFR and Bell struggled. After the first four races, their best finish was 21st at the Daytona 500 with two finishes outside of the top-30 and sat 32nd in points.

“We battled back and have begun to see some results, which is good,” Bell said.“It’s nice to be getting some results after the start of the season we had. We are continuing to build and get better, which is the goal.”

If recent history is any indication, Bell’s momentum might be the spark LFR needs to get going for the rest of the season. If you look back to a year ago, you will see that the No. 95 team had similar struggles with DiBenedetto, but once they finally cracked off one top-five, they were began to see their finishes increase and showed the potential to contend.

While that remains to be seen if that will happen with Bell, the rookie knows his first season in Cup will continue to be a learning experience and believes that the more he learns, the more likely the team can keep the momentum going.

“I’m a rookie and I’m learning more every race,” Bell said.“Jason (Ratcliff, crew chief) is new with this Cup Series package, and as we continue to go back to the tracks we are continuing to grow and learn as a team.”

The good news for Bell? Next weekend, the No. 95 team will head to another track he has had success in Atlanta Motor Speedway. In his last start at the track, he dominated the Xfinity race, winning after leading 142 of 163 laps.

EMAIL MITCHELL AT Mitchell.Breuer@popularspeed.com

Twitter: @MitchellB66

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