NASCAR Daytona 500: Ross Chastain Leaves Daytona With Zero Regrets

The last ten laps of Monday’s Daytona 500 can be considered a race in itself. And the biggest highlight of that race was the 23-car pileup. When the race resumed after a brief red flag period, it was Ross Chastain and William Byron who raced it out for the lead. However, with Alex Bowman pushing Chastain and the cars of Corey LaJoie and Austin Cindric veering to the inside lane, Chastain perhaps made a slightly miscalculated move on the last lap, which ultimately took him and Cindric out of the race, forcing them to settle for a 21st and a 22nd place finish, respectively.

However, Chastain wasn’t apologetic at all. Yes, there wasn’t enough gap for him to clear the cars ahead of him, but that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t have tried. The Trackhouse Racing driver said, “I took the gap. I don’t apologize for that. I can go to sleep tonight knowing that I took the white flag making the move to win the Daytona 500.” However, he did admit that people might call his move too aggressive, especially because he didn’t finish the race.

But Cindric was visibly disappointed. “We had a shot to win the Daytona 500,” he said. “We were really in great position with the outside lane breaking up and kind of one-on-one with the 24 (William Byron) with the whole pack behind, so you can’t really ask for anything else other than that out of myself and the team. It just sucks a little bit.”

Ross Chastain changed his verdict after a brief chat with Cindric

Chastain and Cindric were the two drivers involved in the last-lap crash. As they made contact, both the drivers spun out, but the Melonman slid quite far into the grasswork on the infield. After the race was done and dusted, the duo was seen sharing a conversation, which, by the way, wasn’t a heated one at all. Is Ross Chastain getting softer? Well, a little speculation wouldn’t hurt.

It seemed like Chastain wasn’t aware of how the crash actually happened. But when Cindric explained how it all panned out, the #1 driver was surprised. He said…“Really? I thought I turned left”. Then, he turned to the reporters and said, “Hey, forget what I said. “ He also mentioned that he needed to watch the replay and patted Cindric on his back before parting ways with him.

Cindric’s wrath was directed more toward Corey LaJoie, who, according to him, was the root of the contact between him and the #1 driver. “Corey finished 4th, so congrats,” said Cindric. “He tried to fit a car where there wasn’t a car and just continued to push through my left rear until I wrecked.” However, LaJoie didn’t seem to care about Cindric’s comments at all. He stated that he had seen Cindric do dumb stuff before too. “We’re not friends,” he added bluntly.