Ross Chastain came within striking distance of advancing to the Round of 8 for just the second time in his career, but a string of missteps and one desperate move at the end sealed his fate at Charlotte. Entering the Roval ninth in the playoff standings, only 13 points below the cutline, Chastain traded punches with Joey Logano lap after lap across the 17-turn, 109-lap battle, both fighting tooth and nail for survival.
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With tire wear dictating the rhythm of the race, pit strategy became a great deal. A sluggish right-front tire change in Logano’s camp momentarily opened the door for Chastain, but the advantage evaporated when the Trackhouse driver picked up a costly speeding penalty with 20 laps to go.
Logano’s crew chief, Paul Wolfe, rolled the dice with a call, summoning his driver for fresh rubber with 10 laps left. Chastain, banking on track position, chose to stay out, but as the laps wound down, his worn tires betrayed him.
On the final lap, Denny Hamlin slipped past, and in a last-ditch move through the frontstretch chicane, Chastain tangled with Hamlin, sending both spinning across the line backward as Logano slipped through by 0.167 seconds to safety.
A dejected Chastain admitted afterward, “I’d restart the whole day. For Trackhouse Racing, they expect so much more out of me. And to speed on pit road, I went off the end of pit road and didn’t turn. I had more room and just trying to get to the yellow line. And just completely started the downfall there and then came out of the pit stall and double clicked up into third (gear) and just unforced errors.”
“It’s just terrible. So, it’s heartbreaking for almost 200 employees at Trackhouse, our teammates, our ECR engines. Everybody that makes this go around. Justin (Marks) hired me to carry this 1 car, and to drive it, and to be the leader, and I just completely unraveled our day. So, yeah, not acceptable. Like, just completely unacceptable,” he added.
Hamlin, unaware that passing the No. 1 Trackhouse Racing driver would hand Logano the last playoff spot, said afterward he might have played his cards differently had he known the deal. “I would’ve made the best decision for me, I wish I would had known,” he told Fox Sports.
After the race, Chastain walked over to Hamlin to offer an apology, having already expressed remorse to his Trackhouse crew, acknowledging that his errors had cost the team its playoff run.
