Norman native Christopher Bell won the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series season championship last November, but his racing career began on dirt tracks around Oklahoma and beyond. [AP PHOTO]

FORT WORTH, TEXAS — Every time they drove down the road with the race car in a trailer behind them, three things were certain.

Country music on the radio, mom's nachos in the hotel room, and a freshly graded dirt oval awaiting Christopher Bell's tire tracks.

For countless weekends of his youth, that was Bell's routine, racing cars on dirt tracks in Tulsa, Claremore, Fort Cobb and a few other places around Oklahoma.

That, of course, came after the Norman native already had proved himself as a talented driver at I-44 Speedway in south Oklahoma City — well before his ninth birthday.