Christopher Bell is making the most of his late-race chances to seize wins.

Bell passed Kyle Busch with five laps to go, then held off Daytona 500 winner William Byron to win NASCAR’s first road course race of the season Sunday at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas.

The late-race drama produced his second consecutive victory after his overtime win in Atlanta a week earlier.

Once Bell cleared Busch, the Oklahoma driver had to make a desperate bid to keep his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota in front of the hard-charging Byron in his Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, and the Toyota of 2023 race winner Tyler Reddick of 23X1 Racing.

Bell raced to his 11th career victory. Busch, who led 43 of 95 laps in his Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet, faded to fifth as his winless streak stretched to 60 races dating to 2023.

“These road courses races are just so much fun,” Bell said. “(Busch) was doing such a good job running his race. He bobbled and allowed me to get out front. When he did, I just said, ‘Don’t beat yourself.’”

The furious nip-and-tuck finish could have ended in a crash that ruined someone’s race and jumbled the field with a late caution flag. Busch and Bell have a heated history of collisions in Austin, notably last year when Busch confronted the younger driver over contact in a race where Bell finished second.

This time, everyone kept it clean all the way to the end.

“Amazing to have such respectful clean, hard racing. It was a beautiful way to end a race,” Bell said.

Even Busch complimented Bell’s driving.

“I’ll give Christopher credit,” Busch said. “He ran me really hard.”

Hendrick Motorsports’ Chase Elliott started third and quickly dropped to the back when he was spun by Trackhouse Racing’s Ross Chastain in the first turn, but fought his way back through the field to fourth.

INDYCAR

Scott Dixon ran the entire IndyCar season-opening race without radio communication in a miscue that probably cost him his first career victory on the downtown streets of St. Petersburg, Fla.

The six-time IndyCar champion finished second to winner Alex Palou in a 1-2 finish for Chip Ganassi Racing. Team owner Ganassi said if the radio had not malfunctioned “he would have won — it was simple.”

Dixon instead was runner-up at St. Pete for the fifth time in 21 starts on the street course. He has eight career podiums but has never reached the top spot.

“I’m pretty pissed off. We had a good race going and we didn’t get it done, so it doesn’t feel good,” fumed the New Zealander.

Dixon said it’s the first time in his career he ran an entire race without radio communications and he lost already spotty contact with the No. 9 crew around the 10th lap for good. He pitted based on his fuel gauge but not having the radio “ultimately cost us the race.”

“With not (pitting) when I should have, I think, with about maybe the same lap as Alex. We caught that traffic with about five or six cars and lost about two or three seconds on that in lap, so that was a bit of a nightmare,” Dixon said. “You have a fuel light so you know when the car is going to run out. I didn’t know if they could hear me, so I was just telling them ‘I’m just going to run to the light and see what happens.’

“Ultimately I think for me, it was just one lap too long. I should have pitted maybe when I saw (Palou) coming in.”

Palou has won three of the last four IndyCar championships, including two straight. He now takes a 10-point lead over Dixon into the next event.

“Really good here for us in St. Pete — not one of our favorite tracks. We’ve been challenged here the last number of years,” Ganassi said. “We’re certainly the season favorite until next week or until the next race. I think our cars are better than they were a year ago, at least here in St. Pete. If you saw how we ran here the last, like I said, number of years, it wasn’t great. It was OK, we hung on, but we were clearly being beat by some of the other teams, and that wasn’t the case this weekend. So it was nice.”

Marcus Ericsson was the last driver to win for Ganassi in St. Pete in 2023. Prior to that win, it was Dario Franchitti in 2011.