Speaking on media day ahead of the NASCAR finale in Phoenix this weekend, Trackhouse Racing’s Chastain said that watching the footage of him driving flat-out into the wall to gain the positions that he needed to make the Championship Four “didn’t feel like it was me in the car” and that he “still doesn’t know how it worked”.
Chastain will race for the Cup title on Sunday against Christopher Bell, Chase Elliott and Joey Logano – and the best-placed finisher will be crowned champion.
“A lot of people have asked if I would do it again, or am I looking at other tracks [to do it], and I was in the car, I don’t care to ever do that again,” Chastain told FOX’s RaceHub show. “It wasn’t like I had one big hit, but I had the longest wreck that I’ve ever felt because it was just sustained all around the corner with the g-loads.”
He also revealed that he let go of the steering wheel after a couple of seconds as he rode the wall: “I was not expecting to grab fifth gear, because I realized I was going to hit the chip [rev limit] and run out of rpm and slow down more than I wanted to, so I grabbed fifth, fully committed, and about halfway around the corner I finally let go of the wheel. I was like ‘I’m not helping here’.
“I gotta say, losing that connection with the car, letting go of the wheel, is normally when I’ve been sliding or on the brake pedal, but to be just on the throttle pedal was just a wild sensation. I felt like the car was going to flip over actually.”
Chastain continues to insist that he hadn’t practiced or premeditated the move and claims the last time he’d done it in a video game was “probably when I was 12-years old”.
When asked about the physics involved, he said: “I still don't know why it worked. Like, I look back at the physics of it, I have people explain to me what happened, what I felt, why that car did not slow down, why it kept air in the tires.
“The right-front suspension broke, the right-front upper control arm is broken, but I was able to get across the line before I could feel it. Why it worked, I don't know. I have no ideas or plans to ever do that again because it was not pleasant.
“There was a lot of luck involved. I'm not going to shy away from that. But I did have it, like, from the time we took the white flag, I had it in my mind. You cannot leave the wall. Once I'm on the backstretch, I have to follow it.
“It actually has [more of] a kick-out or pocket I'll call it into [Turn] 3 than I even thought. When I hit the wall, I hit it pretty hard on entry, which surprised me. I thought I could kind of lay into it.
“I was fully accepting of the risk of running wide open into a steel wall around a tight corner and whatever happened happened. I had fully accepted that. What's wild is I only thought of it 10 seconds earlier, then five seconds later made the decision, then five seconds later, like, acted on it.”
Chastain confirmed that he didn’t try to repeat the move this week in the simulator at virtual Phoenix but believes that his teammate Daniel Suarez did evaluate it.
“They asked if I wanted to, I think Daniel tried it, I had no intentions,” said Chastain. “I had some other guys tell me about how they would have to downshift and do different things.
“I'm telling you, like, you can lay it into that wall as easy as you want to. You're still driving a 3,500-pound race car into a steel wall at a high rate of speed. It is not pleasant and not something I want to do just in general.
“We will do whatever we have to do if it comes down to it. But, no, I didn't try it this week. They offered. I don't think that's going to be the way you're going to win this race.”
