Ross Chastain has never been afraid of making moves in a NASCAR race. Remember, this is the same guy who, borrowing from racing video games, made an incredible move in the fall 2022 race at Martinsville to get into the Championship 4 round.
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But on a recent episode of SpeedFreaks, the Florida watermelon farmer spoke about being a bit more cautious in the upcoming NASCAR Cup playoffs, particularly at a place like World Wide Technology Raceway (also known as Gateway), which is making its first appearance in the playoffs after three previous years as the 15th race of each season.
The race at the track just outside St. Louis will be the middle event of the Round of 16, sandwiched between playoff opener Darlington and Bristol, which will then cut the field from the original 16 drivers to 12 to head into the second round.
“You just have to minimize the risk,” Chastain said. “It’s the Round of 16. It’s our second race on September 7th of the playoffs. So trying to just make it through that first round is everything. I mean, our sport is built around winning, but the playoffs mean so much. And I missed them last year, okay? It was terrible.
“I’ve worked really hard and we’ve won early enough this year in the Coca-Cola 600, the World 600, so that we’re locked in. So yes, when we go to World Wide Technology Raceway on September 7th, it’s going to be full of intention to finish that race.”
Admittedly, winning a race and finishing it are two very different propositions. But in the playoffs, if a driver can’t win, he has to finish high enough to earn enough points that will help get him into the Round of 12 the following week.
“Sometimes that means going slower,” Chastain said. “At Indianapolis (for the Brickyard 400), I got crashed running in the 30s, but it’s because we were all kind of fading over to the left, blocking each other, and (Michael) McDowell got into us. No problem there.
“But if that’s at World Wide Technology Raceway in the playoffs, I’m not going to make that block that early in the race and live to see another lap.”
You can’t do regular season things in the playoffs
Chastain is right when he says about living to see another lap. But the playoffs, especially the middle race of the first round, can go a long way towards helping your cause to advance to the second round, or it could put you behind the eight ball that you won’t be able to recover from at Bristol the following week.
Basically, Chastain has to balance winning versus points in every playoff race, particularly the first round. If he wins any of the first round races, he gets an automatic promotion to the next round. But then there’s the balancing act.
If he can’t win or doesn’t have a car to challenge for the win, then he has to find a way to finish as high as possible, to earn as many points as possible to take with him into the next round. Chastain is obviously hoping and praying that he won’t be eliminated.
By virtue of his win at the Coca-Cola 600 on Memorial Day weekend, Chastain received an automatic berth into the playoffs. This will only be the third playoffs of his Cup career
“(Missing the playoffs last year) was a terrible feeling,” he sighed. “I hope I never have to experience it again.”
Using his 39th place finish in the Brickyard 400 as an example, Chastain already has similar strategy planned. Only this time, he doesn’t want to be involved in a wreck that ended his day early.
“It’d be a non-negotiable that I have to make it to the end of the race. That’s the thing. To finish first, first you must finish,” he said. But the end of a race can so easily be a different story.
“At the end of the race, you go for it,” Chastain said. “If you’ve got a chance to win, line up on the front row for the final restart, right? With a couple laps to go, make a run to the finish. You go for it and risk it all. It’s worth the risk at that point in my opinion.”
