Hobbs and Steve Matchett, analysts for NBC Sports Formula 1 coverage, occasionally rotate if Bell is on assignment. It almost seemed absurd based on my background.". He earned his high school diploma in California from San Luis Obispo High School. Bell posted his best Indianapolis 500 qualifying effort to date in 2011, racing for Sam Schmidt Motorsports. ". Were working on it.' He is a member of famous Driver with the age 47 years old group. Furthermore, Townsends father had the boat inflated and checked in as luggage while they were taking a flight to Minneapolis. Throw his broadcasting work with NBC and a hectic family life with two small boys into the mix, and boating had to take something of a backseat for a time. When I'm in the Ferrari race car it's a machine and I'm trying to extract every ounce of performance I can regardless of the brand affiliation. Jun 9, 2015. Bell was on a limited-month schedule but had an impressive race day, advancing from 24th on the grid up to the top five. "There was the inflatable part with the pontoons in one bag, and the floorboards, rails, and accessories in another." Spirit of adventure and Huck Finn travels completed, Townsend turned to racing go-karts when he was 12 years old. He is currently working as a racing commentator for NBC along with Leigh Diffey and James Hinchcliffe. After a while you start thinking, God, no one calls me very often to drive race cars, that's always me calling, pushing. The accelerated climb to the sport's summit was almost unheard of, but natural talent and driving for Dorricott Racing, at the time Indy Light's best team, masked his inexperience only so much. "I went to the Indy 500," he says. He is from American. But if behind the fear was money, and money was going to get me to where I need to be, then go for it.". He made his first Indianapolis 500 appearance for Vision Racing in 2006, qualifying 15th and finishing 22nd. (key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap. Townsend's wife is an American realtor working as the director of residential estates for The Agency. The Californian has stopped by AUTOMOBILE's metro Detroit office a couple of days before he competes in the Tudor United SportsCar Championship's Chevrolet Sports Car Classic on Belle Isle. He is competed full-time in the 2017 WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GT Daytona class with Alex Job Racing in an Audi R8 GT3 and returned to Le Mans with Ferrari in 2017. Bells home was one of five burglarized in his Pacific Palisades neighborhood. Top 250 Movies Most Popular Movies Top 250 TV Shows Most Popular TV Shows Most Popular Video Games Most Popular Music Videos Most Popular Podcasts. At 12, he raced go-karts locally and regionally, but at 13 while loading an ATV onto a trailer, the trailer came loose and ran him over, putting him in a wheelchair for weeks and effectively ending his racing "career." We use cookies to enhance your visit to our website and to improve your experience. My wife and kids are into it. All material is intended for informational purposes only and has been obtained from public records, MLS, or other sources believed to be reliable, but not verified. He matched his Sebring feat in his first Rolex 24 at Daytona start in 2014, winning that driving with Level 5 Motorsports. In 2016, Bell along with teammates Jeff Segal and Bill Sweedler won the 24 Hours of LeMans in only their second try. Sports-car racing is cool but Indy Car was, I had that on a pedestal from an early age so I had to go after that. After college (at UC Santa Barbara, where he was captain of the waterski team), he spent the next several years competing in regional and national events, climbing the race car ladder, before his first big win with the 2001 Indy Lights Championship. He is currently competing full-time in the 2017 WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GT Daytona class with Alex Job Racing in an Audi R8 GT3 and will return to Le Mans with Ferrari. Exclusive: Early-Bird Tasting Tour of Pike Place Market. He is 47 years old. Does that mean, looking back through the years, that he wishes he gravitated to sports cars originally? His efforts shifted to Europe and in 2003 he was teammate to series champion Bjrn Wirdheim in International F3000 competition. As I started to get older I'd watch an Indy car race and be like, 'I almost think I could do that.' Im pretty sure Im in Daytona. He's just an incredible source of enthusiasm and inspiration for me, and we've been successful. You look in front of you, you see the steepest, most difficult climb you can imagine, trying to make it as a professional race-car driver, you're like well that looks better than the wall behind me. "The first television job I did I believe was for Sky Sports in the U.K. doing Indy Car. I went up and talked to the pilots and they were like, 'We know. The closest place they could touch down was Jacksonville, about two hours' drive north of the speedway. Ad Choices. "All the work you put in to get all that stuff, and at least you have recognition of the achievement, and now it's gone.". (KAIT) - A White County woman faces two counts of Medicaid fraud after authorities said she turned in over 300 fraudulent claims to the system over a three-year period. Townsend, 46, from Howth in Dublin, allegedly got physical with "My dad bought a 14-foot Zodiac with wood-insert floors and a 25-hp outboard for going down the Mississippi River." Splash and go. So, we had a whole splash-and-go strategy worked out, but in the end, we were able to manually pressurize the cabin and climb to 27,000 feet, get better efficiency., 1996 @IndyCar Champ taking the baton for this leg. "I would say until my second half of my second year of Lights, I was always over my head," he acknowledges. Townsend Bell was born on 19 April, 1975 in San Francisco, CA, is an American racing driver. He is a man of above-average stature. In 2015, Bell and co-driver Bill Sweedler took home the IMSA GT Daytona Championship. The actor is married to Agatha Araya, with whom he has two children, one of whom is Desmond Townsend. Bell has contested nine Indianapolis 500s, including this year's, with a best finish of fourth in 2011. Townsend Bell. You could feel your ears plugging up and then releasing. Walking Tours. "My first real boating experience was kind of funny," says Los Angeles-based race-car driver and NBC Sports' IndyCar broadcaster Townsend Bell. A partial CART season in 2002 did not produce spectacular results, though a fourth- and seventh-place finish caught attention. These people just keep calling me to do TV, maybe I ought to actually put a little effort into it. And then NBC called a few years ago and then it just kind of grew from there. Release Calendar Browse Movies by Genre Top Box Office Showtimes & Tickets Movie News India Movie . I was 10 years old at the time, and we started out with that boat in San Francisco Bay as the precursor to our Mississippi trip. Do Not Sell My Personal Information. 2023 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Satellite Information Network, LLC. 12 with Zach Veach and Frankie Montecalvo, who were announced in this ride last week. Furthermore, Townsend and his wife Heather had their first date at the . Bell has filled in for Formula One coverage on NBC, most notably in 2016 when he replaced Will Buxton, who was on bereavement leave for the races at Sepang and Mexico City. The Associated Press 0:05 1:00 Townsend Bell competed in the Rolex 24 at Daytona over the weekend, then flew home to Los Angeles to receive bad news from his wife: Their home had been. Townsend Bell, former INDYCAR, and CART and Champ Car driver, serves as an analyst for NBC Sports' INDYCAR coverage. We were like, Splash and go. Christopher Bell is married to his wife, Morgan Kemenah who is also his best friend. Townsend Bells income source is mostly from being a successful Driver. Full text is unavailable for this digitized archive article. Bell made his sports car debut in 2012 and won the 12 Hours of Sebring on debut with Alex Job Racing. She vastly prefers this to the back of a superbike or jumping on an off-road truck.". He is happily married to his wife Heather Campbell Bell. ), (key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; results in italics indicate fastest lap), Complete International Formula 3000 results, Complete WeatherTech SportsCar Championship results, Last edited on 16 November 2022, at 17:39, Learn how and when to remove this template message, "Townsend Bell back in Indy 500; Reinbold and Hamilton working together", "Townsend Bell confirms he's running the Indy 500 again this year", "TUDOR Night Of Champions In NYC Celebrates Inaugural Award Winners", "Scuderia Corsa Reveals Rolex 24 at Daytona Lineup", "Indycar Racing News | Racer.com - INDY 500: Top speeds crack 240mph barrier", "Justin Lofton Wins Round No. Crashed a lot, hit people. , The 2023 Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing Is Luxury Muscle, GM Plans 4-Door, Crossover Vette EVs, Sources Say, 7 US Entries Confirmed for 24 Hour of Le Mans, Autoweek Racing on TV: February 27-March 5. To access his home, the thieves had to climb over a 6-foot fence and smash through the glass door in his master bedroom. Before joining NBC, Townsend was working as a color commentator for INDYCAR broadcasts on Sky Sports in Europe. Any time the pilot pulls out the owners manual, its generally not a good sign midflight, Bell said. I dont really think Id be focused on a stolen Rolex while I was racing. I'm actually pretty shy. aired last year on ESPN broadcasts of Major League Soccer games, and this year is the lead segment during Fox Sports 1's Sunday night MLS postgame show. Now I really enjoy it, which is neat because television, selling an idea for TV, leverages a lot of what I've learned through racing: trying to convey an opportunity that is largely intangible in the beginning.". 2023 NBC Universal, All rights reserved. Frankly, when I got into an Indy car I was fast, but I made a lot of mistakes my rookie year. View Full Article in Timesmachine , See the article in its original context from. At an age when almost every race-car driver of any promise is far along in their development, Bell was 21, in his junior year of college, most certainly not a race-car driver, "and having that classic 'What am I doing?' He spent time in karting, Skip Barber, Formula Dodge and the Barber Dodge Pro Series before graduating to Indy Lights in 2000. He won the Indy Lights championship in 2001 and earned two starts in a Champ Car in a joint effort between Patrick Racing and Dale Coyne Racing as a test for a full-time seat in 2002. I had never really made any kind of plan like, 'This is what I'm going to do when I get older. "I probably would've been totally out of racing by 2008 if the merger [between CART and the IRL] hadn't happened," he says. We may earn money from the links on this page. For Bell, the circumstances were similarly challenging. Bell has also both competed and commented in the Stadium Super Trucks.[8]. I'm still working on winning one -- winning the Indy 500 only -- but I am proud of the success of where I started and how I got there, because that's rare. Bell was one hand with his wife . That season, he drove a Lotus Evora GTE for Alex Job Racing in the American Le Mans Series with Bill Sweedler, before he and Sweedler drove a Ferrari F458 Italia the following year with West/AJR.[3]. Home the IMSA GT Daytona Championship 'We know with a best finish of fourth in 2011 racing... Hours of LeMans in only their second try Diffey and James Hinchcliffe is unavailable this! [ 8 ] in Timesmachine, See the article in its original context from in 2006, 15th... I made a lot of mistakes my rookie year on this page improve your experience it! Website and to improve your experience when I get older 1 coverage occasionally. 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