Yahoo Autos Chastain looks for breakthrough as playoff cutoff looms
Ross Chastain admitted Saturday that, yes, he is surprised to find himself going into the NASCAR Cup Series regular-season finale outside of a postseason position.
Chastain then paused and took a small breath.
“Yeah, yeah, it is [surprising],” Chastain reiterated. “This stuff is so hard. I knew that. I knew that whenever I ran my first Truck race in 2011 and as I stepped through the ranks, and I was in a Cup car here at Darlington where we were just there to run the laps and go a single-digit number of laps down.”
Chastain and Trackhouse Racing are 27 points from the final spot on the playoff grid. Mathematically, Chastain could point his way into the postseason if given an opening by his competition. He would need to leapfrog Bubba Wallace, who is the first driver on the outside looking in, and Chris Buescher, who holds down the final spot going into Sunday night at Darlington Raceway (6 p.m. ET, USA).
A driver can earn a maximum of 20 points by winning the first two stages. A victory in the Southern 500 is an automatic bid into the postseason.
“I knew, obviously, how challenging it was,” Chastain continued. “I also had this dream that it would be a whole lot easier when I had all the funding, the tires, the pit crews and everything. And it has; I don’t expect to go laps down anymore. It still happens every now and then.
“But I’d say, right now, it’s real that we are in this position. I’d say [I’m] surprised. If you would have had me fill out a bingo card at the start of the season, I wouldn’t have dabbed this block for sure.”
Although he is 14th in the championship standings, Chastain has been pushed out of a playoff spot because there are three drivers with victories below him in points. It is the first time since Chastain has driven for Trackhouse Racing (2022 to the present) that Chastain has not been locked into the postseason before it began.
Being winless is also a change of pace. Chastain won two races in both of his first two seasons driving the No. 1 Chevrolet.
The point swing to push Chastain to a make-or-break weekend has been hefty. A little over two months ago, he left New Hampshire Motor Speedway sitting 12th on the playoff grid with a 93-point advantage.
One of the keys to his struggles has been the lack of consistent speed, Chastain said. He also hasn’t earned the stage points the team needs to accumulate like the other contenders. But not all of the misfortune has been his own doing.
Chastain was wiped out from the front row at Nashville Superspeedway on a late-race restart. He was spun from the middle of the pack during an overtime attempt at Michigan International Speedway.
In the seven races since New Hampshire, Chastain has failed to finish twice and has one top-10 finish. He’s led 57 laps.
“I didn’t crash on my own at Pocono in years past, so that one stands out for sure,” Chastain said of the loss of points. “You could go down the list, and we could dissect it over a four-hour media availability, but ultimately, it just comes back to how fast can you go and can you finish those benchmark moments of Stage 1, 2 and collect the points.
“I don’t really have anything to point at, but it adds up to points. I don’t know how else to answer that.”
