Looking at the final results, Ross Chastain is in the middle of a pretty good stretch of four top tens in the last five races, but it doesn't tell the whole story. He nearly won at Texas, finishing second, though that came after scoring zero stage points because he started back in 31st. Unfortunately, that's not an outlier.
The pattern continues as he finished seventh at Bristol, but started 35th. Another seventh-place finish at Darlington came from 25th on the grid. From 17th to sixth at Martinsville, 19th to fifth at Las Vegas, and three consecutive qualifying efforts outside of the top-30 right now -- that's more than he had in the entirety of the 2024 season.
