Ross Chastain had a great opportunity to begin the Darlington weekend with a victory in the Truck Series race, but let it slip through his grasp. He lost it on the final corner to Core Heim, leaving him distraught and understandably so.
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The closing stretch was already ready for chaos. With 20 laps to go, Carson Hocevar threw it low into Turn 1 and powered past Kaden Honeycutt to take control, with Chastain tucked in behind. The move lit the fuse, but Hocevar’s charge came undone with four laps left when a tire went down, shuffling the order and opening the door for Chastain to go for the win.
The Trackhouse Racing driver stepped through and took the lead, only for the rug to be pulled out in the final moments. Speaking after the race with Austin Cindric, he admitted the finish caught him off guard, even as he pointed to the gap in tire wear that tipped the scales.
“I have no idea what just happened. We did it so much right… I think we started the best that we have ever started coming back into the team. Coming to the checkered (Brandon)McReynolds (Chastain’s spotter) said, the #5’s there, something, he’s fast. And I was like, ‘Fine, yeah.’ And he just drove by me. I had no idea,” he said.
“I think that’s on us as a whole that we didn’t catch that. So, of course, I would have run the bottom if I thought he would have been close, but I thought I got a good restart. Bummer.”
Chastain conceded he failed to read the situation as it happened. Had he known what was coming, he would have probably taken a different line, though he doubted it would have changed the outcome. His truck found grip up high, and he ran the line that gave him his best shot. However, Heim carried momentum which he could not match.
Ross Chastain had no idea scuffs were even coming and isnt sure what he could have done pic.twitter.com/rzrZxYtvhI
— Matt Weaver (@MattWeaverRA) March 21, 2026
Pressed on when he first saw the move coming, Chastain replied with a shrug, “When he popped into my window net.”
By the time Chastain reached Turn 3 and rolled back into the throttle, Heim had already built a run, and once he showed his nose, the race was all but decided. Chastain held his line and got through the corner as clean as he could, but in the end, tire wear made all the difference.
