Ross Chastain was in third place when the white flag flew over the field on Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway.
When the checkered flag flew, it was Chastain first under the flag to score his second career NASCAR Cup Series win.
With the field scrambling behind the leaders, Chastain and Kyle Larson split leader Erik Jones coming into the tri-oval on the final lap. When Jones moved up to block Larson, Chastain made the pass on both of them to take the lead.
From there, Jones crossed the line a car length ahead of the nearest competitor to take the win.
“Holy cow. I’m always the one going to the top too early, making the mistake,” said Chastain, who only led one lap on the day – the final lap. “There at the end it was like eight to go, I was like, I’m not going up there again. I did that a couple times today. I was like, I’ll just ride on the bottom. If it works, I’m not going to lose the race for us, I’ll just let them.”
The eighth generation watermelon farmer from Alva, Florida won earlier this season on the Circuit of the Americas road course in Austin, Texas. Just as he did there, Chastain celebrated by smashing a watermelon on the finish line and eating it in front of the crowd. He then handed out pieces of watermelon to kids in the stands.
Along with being Chastain’s second career win, the victory also marks the second win for the new TrackHouse Racing team.
“Yeah, I mean, Justin Marks and what he laid out for us was ambitious,” Chastain said. “I had no idea, you know, what to expect other than I knew I had my group from last year, I had AdventHealth, the Moose, now with Worldwide Express and Jockey coming onboard, we’ve got partners. They’re believing in us.
“We started the year with a lot of races open. We’re almost full now. It’s because of the vision of Justin Marks. Pitbull, Armando, we won, yeah!”
For Jones, who came within a few thousand feet of his first career Cup Series win, it was a near miss, as he ended up with a sixth place finish.
“Coming there that last lap, we were single file. I felt pretty good about it,” said Jones, who led 10 times for 25 laps on the day.” They kind of doubled up behind us. That top lane was getting some momentum. Looking back, I wish I would have stayed at the bottom and let the 1 (Chastain) push me. I didn’t realize they were coming with that much speed.
“But try to defend on the 5 (Larson), you’re too far ahead already right here. Obviously a defense on the 5 kind of gives the door to the 1. It is what it is. You’re trying to just win the race. You can only see how much is going on from the seat. You’re trying to make the best decision you can the last 1500 feet.”
After the last lap attempt at the win, Larson came home in fourth.
“I feel like I did a pretty near perfect job for me at a superspeedway until the last lap there,” Larson said. “Yeah, I should have, like, I think just kind of faked going high, then went back low. I had that run. Ross helped me with that run. It kind of baited me into going to the outside. Just a little inexperience probably there.”
Austin Dillon finished in second, with Kyle Busch in third, Larson in fourth, and Martin Truex, Jr. in fifth.
Jones, Dawsonville, Georgia’s Chase Elliott, Michael McDowell, Alex Bowman, and Kevin Harvick rounded out the top 10.
With the checkered flag flying, Kurt Busch spun into the wall after contact with Larson, with Busch’s teammate, Bubba Wallace, crashing as well coming to the line. It was the final crash in an uncharacteristically mostly clean Talladega finish.
The race was slowed six times times by caution, with four of those coming out for on-track incidents. Two of those were for multi-car crashes. The first occurred on lap 57, when the engine failed in Daniel Hemric’s Chevrolet. His car was tagged from behind by Austin Dillon, who then gathered up the cars of Chase Briscoe and Chris Buescher.
The second incident came on a lap 90 restart, when the cars of Hendrick teammates Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott slowed to allow William Byron to move down in front of them. That created a log jam at the front, leading to Joey Logano’s car getting punted from behind, sending him into the wall and triggering a crash that gathered up several additional cars, including Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., Cole Custer, Daniel Suarez, Harrison Burton and Todd Gilliland.
Wallace won the first segment of the race, with Byron winning the second. The third segment ran caution free for the final 62 laps.
NASCAR Cup Series
Talladega Superspeedway – Talladega, AL
GEICO 500 – April 24, 2022
1. (19) Ross Chastain, Chevrolet, 188.
2. (14) Austin Dillon, Chevrolet, 188.
3. (12) Kyle Busch, Toyota, 188.
4. (5) Kyle Larson, Chevrolet, 188.
5. (2) Martin Truex, Jr., Toyota, 188.
6. (16) Erik Jones, Chevrolet, 188.
7. (28) Chase Elliott, Chevrolet, 188.
8. (21) Michael McDowell, Ford, 188.
9. (27) Alex Bowman, Chevrolet, 188.
10. (24) Kevin Harvick, Ford, 188.
11. (22) Ryan Blaney, Ford, 188.
12. (11) Justin Haley, Chevrolet, 188.
13. (23) Aric Almirola, Ford, 188.
14. (33) Corey LaJoie, Chevrolet, 188.
15. (8) William Byron, Chevrolet, 188.
16. (6) Kurt Busch, Toyota, 188.
17. (9) Bubba Wallace, Toyota, 188.
18. (7) Denny Hamlin, Toyota, 188.
19. (39) Landon Cassill(i), Chevrolet, 188.
20. (31) Noah Gragson(i), Chevrolet, 188.
21. (18) Austin Cindric #, Ford, 188.
22. (1) Christopher Bell, Toyota, 187.
23. (15) Brad Keselowski, Ford, 187.
24. (36) David Ragan, Ford, 186.
25. (38) J.J. Yeley(i), Ford, 185.
26. (37) B.J. McLeod, Ford, 172.
27. (32) Todd Gilliland #, Ford, Accident, 121.
28. (34) Cody Ware, Ford, DVP, 105.
29. (29) Cole Custer, Ford, Engine, 98.
30. (26) Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., Chevrolet, Accident, 95.
31. (4) Daniel Suarez, Chevrolet, DVP, 92.
32. (13) Joey Logano, Ford, Accident, 89.
33. (20) Ty Dillon, Chevrolet, Accident, 89.
34. (25) Harrison Burton #, Ford, Accident, 89.
35. (35) Greg Biffle, Chevrolet, Fuel Pump, 79.
36. (3) Daniel Hemric(i), Chevrolet, Accident, 56.
37. (17) Chase Briscoe, Ford, Accident, 56.
38. (30) Chris Buescher, Ford, Accident, 56.
39. (10) Tyler Reddick, Chevrolet, Engine, 31.
Average Speed of Race Winner: 148.637 mph.
Time of Race: 3 Hrs, 21 Mins, 52 Secs. Margin of Victory: 0.105 Seconds.
Caution Flags: 6 for 28 laps.
Lead Changes: 41 among 16 drivers.
Lap Leaders: C. Bell 1;D. Suarez 2-3;C. Bell 4-9;D. Suarez 10-35;C. Custer 36;J. Logano 37;K. Larson 38-50;B.Wallace 51;K. Larson 52;B. Wallace 53;K. Larson 54;B. Wallace 55-60;B. McLeod 61;K. Larson 62-64;E. Jones 65;K.Larson 66;E. Jones 67;K. Larson 68-69;E. Jones 70-73;B. Wallace 74;E. Jones 75-82;B. McLeod 83;W. Byron 84-121;*.Yeley(i) 122;E. Jones 123-124;K. Busch 125;E. Jones 126;K. Busch 127-128;R. Blaney 129-151;B. Wallace 152;E.Jones 153-154;B. Wallace 155-159;C. LaJoie 160;K. Busch 161;D. Hamlin 162-170;K. Larson 171-176;E. Jones 177;K. Larson 178-181;E. Jones 182-183;K. Larson 184;E. Jones 185-187;R. Chastain 188.
Leaders Summary: (Driver, Times Lead, Laps Led) William Byron 1 time for 38 laps; Kyle Larson 9 times for 32 laps; Daniel Suarez 2 times for 28 laps; Erik Jones 10 times for 25 laps; Ryan Blaney 1 time for 23 laps; Bubba Wallace 6 times for 15 laps; Denny Hamlin 1 time for 9 laps; Christopher Bell 2 times for 7 laps; Kyle Busch 2 times for 3 laps; BJ McLeod 2 times for 2 laps; Kurt Busch 1 time for 1 lap; * JJ Yeley(i) 1 time for 1 lap; Corey LaJoie 1 time for 1 lap; Ross Chastain 1 time for 1 lap; Joey Logano 1 time for 1 lap; Cole Custer 1 time for 1 lap.
Stage #1 Top Ten: 23,5,20,24,19,9,45,43,48,47
Stage #2 Top Ten: 24,9,5,19,48,18,10,43,1,45
Playoff Standings: 1. William Byron – 334 (2 Wins); 2. Ross Chastain – 292 (2 Wins); 3. Kyle Busch – 312 (1 Win); 4. Alex Bowman – 309 (1 Win); 5. Kyle Larson – 299 (1 Win); 6. Chase Briscoe – 246 (1 Win); 7. Austin Cindric – 238 (1 Win); 8. Denny Hamlin – 178 (1 Win); 9. Chase Elliott – 368; 10. Ryan Blaney – 347; 11. Joey Logano – 308; 12. Martin Truex, Jr. – 298; 13. Aric Almirola – 265; 14. Kevin Harvick – 252; 15. Austin Dillon – 245; 16. Christopher Bell – 243.
(i) Ineligible for driver points in this series
