Trackhouse Racing superstar Ross Chastain goes to race at the Indianapolis Oval on Sunday sitting a mere 27 points above the playoff elimination line. Recent races haven’t been kind to him, serving him two DNFs in the last three starts. Only five more races remain for him to fix a spot in the playoffs and this gives plenty of reason to fret. And Chastain is wary of the danger that lies ahead.
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Ahead of the return to Brickyard, Chastain reiterated that everyone at Trackhouse Racing including himself was working with the common goal of winning races. “This is a sport that rewards winning. So, we’re looking to get back to that,” he ruled. His bad luck began nearly a month ago in Nashville. He’d been in ninth place on the driver standings going to the Music City. Three consecutive finishes outside the top 20 have now put him in 16th.
He expressed awareness of the situation, “It’s simple math. If I was thinking about points, I probably wouldn’t have wrecked last week.” Immediately in his vicinity is 23XI Racing driver Bubba Wallace, 27 points below him, and Chris Buescher, 17 points above him. Should there be a new winner over the next five races, the battle will move to Buescher’s level who is currently in 15th place.
The last time Chastain won a race was at the 2023 season finale in Phoenix. He also hasn’t won in any of the tracks that are coming up to conclude the regular season. With the odds stacked against him, he has qualified to start from 28th place in the upcoming Brickyard 400. His best finish in the three times he has run in this event is 17th place.
Chastain’s crew chief not ready to take extreme risks yet
Offering a solution to Chastain’s situation on his podcast, Kevin Harvick said recently that the driver ought to race hard for the win ignoring the chances of crashing once again. But the No. 1 team’s crew chief, Phil Surgen, doesn’t see along the same lines. He told NASCAR, “As we close in at the end of the regular season, depending on where we are relative to those cars we’re racing, that’ll probably change the amount of risk we take for a win.”
But it’ll be really situational. We’re not gonna go out and just throw Hail Marys next week just because.” The urgency to take high risks might not be there at the moment but it could be in a few weeks from now. The crew chief makes sense because another wreck at this point of the season will all but end Chastain’s hopes of qualifying for the playoffs.
