Ross Chastain is facing a situation he hasn't had to deal with since joining Trackhouse over two years ago — potentially missing the playoffs. Currently, Chastain sits 27 points below the cut-line entering the regular season finale at Darlington. Although he could still point his way in, realistically, it's likely win or nothing this weekend.
He has made the playoffs in back-to-back years, ending 2022 as the championship runner-up. Chastain even opened the 2024 season by nearly winning the Daytona 500, spinning out in a daring move up the middle while trying to take the lead. His Trackhouse Racing teammate Daniel Suarez won the very next week and many thought the driver of the No. 1 would soon follow suit. But as it stands, Chastain's most recent Cup win was the 2023 title-decider, besting all of the Championship 4 drivers and snatching the checkered flag at Phoenix.
Missed opportunities and lost points
It's not to say that a win in 2024 for Chastain was impossible — opportunities and chances were there but the checkered flag remained just out of of reach. At Texas Motor Speedway, he pushed Chase Elliott to the lead and battled side-by-side with the Hendrick Motorsports star on the final restart. At Nashville Superspeedway, he was leading with just over five laps to go when Denny Hamlin passed him after a brief battle. More importantly, in both races, he looked set to finish second before late-race chaos cost him upwards of 60+ points.
With half a lap to go at Texas, he was turned into the wall by William Byron after the driver of the No. 24 closed in fast at the exit of Turn 2. A caution with two laps remaining at Nashville pushed the race into overtime, and Chastain was wrecked from the front row when Kyle Larson blew the entry in Turn 1. If he could wash those incidents away, we'd be having a very different conversation right now.
Chastain addressed those races in a Saturday media availability, saying "Nashville is obviously at the top of that list" when looking at moments he wishes he could take back.
"I felt like we could win there (Nashville). Texas, I was going to run second and would be really happy coming out of there. Those two stand out the most. Pocono, I just crashed. Not at the end of the race and not up front. We were not up front at all, but that’s one where I just flat spun out. Trying to go too fast for the amount of grip I had and broke traction. So yes, there is a list. But when I was thinking this week, I would kind of daydream and lose focus, it was Darlington races that were playing in my mind.”
The Lady in Black and the Melon Man
What about Darlington? Well, it's a track that has a special hold over Chastain and his career. It's where he put his name on the map in 2018, dominating the race for Chip Ganassi Racing before dramatically crashing out in a heated showdown with Cup champion Kevin Harvick. Since then, he's watched several near-wins slip away at the track 'too tough to tame.' In 2023, he infamously clashed with fellow Chevrolet driver Kyle Larson and both drivers wrecked in the battle for the win. A verbal lashing from Rick Hendrick himself followed the incident, leading to a far more conservative Chastain on track.
But this weekend demands aggression. It will be the only way to salvage his season. There's been several times he should have won at Darlington, but it never came together.
"We’ve just had so many opportunities to pull out of here (Darlington) winners and we haven’t accomplished it, except the one time, which was this year," said Chastain, referencing his victory in this year's Truck race at Darlington. "It was just so cool, and it really made it more special because of all the failures. I’ve failed here so many times with cars and trucks capable of winning."
Darlington is one of, if not the most challenging ovals on the schedule. The cars run right up against the wall, and the two ends of the track are wildly different from one another. This weekend's 500-miler will also start in the day and transition to night, forcing crew chiefs to remain on top of the car adjustments.
A surprising predicament
Chastain admitted that he is surprised to be in this situation. If not for surprise winners like Austin Cindric and Harrison Burton, he wouldn't be. But in the current format, winning trumps everything else.
“Yeah, I am (surprised)," said Chastain. "Yeah, yeah it is (surprising). This stuff is so hard. I knew that. I knew that whenever I ran my first truck race in 2011 and as I stepped up through the ranks and was in Cup cars here at Darlington, ones that we were just there to run the laps and go single-digit number of laps down. Nine (laps down) or less was the goal. I knew how challenging it was ... So yeah, I’d say surprised. If you would have had me fill out a bingo card at the start of the season, I wouldn’t have dabbed this block, for sure.”
Do the math
Should Chris Buescher find misfortune, or Chastain collects a mountain of stage points, he could still get his way in via points. But he also has to deal with Bubba Wallace, who is six points closer to Buescher than Chastain is. There are 20 points on the line between the stages, in addition to the points awarded for finishing positions. While the math says it is possible, Chastain's mentality is all about winning this crown jewel event.
“I just know the best way that we can ensure it is to win," he said. "We’ve had opportunities to win the Southern 500. We’ve had opportunities to win a couple of races in the spring and fall here in a different series. That’s my goal. The math says we can do it either way, but my preparation and my mentality – and it’s been this way in Cup since the very first spring race that I came here in 2021. I left here that weekend and thought we can win a Cup race at Darlington one day and that thought hasn’t left my mind since.”
