TALLADEGA, Ala. — Ross Chastain used momentum in the tri-oval at Talladega Superspeedway to edge the field with a savvy last-lap pass to claim victory in Sunday’s Geico 500 for the NASCAR Cup Series.
It was Chastain’s second victory in the last five races aboard the Trackhouse Racing No. 1 Chevrolet.
Coming to the white flag, Petty GMS Racing’s Erik Jones was in command, with the Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet No. 5 of Kyle Larson hounding his Camaro’s rear bumper with Chastain in tow.
Drivers began stacking up on the backstretch, with Jones still in the lead. It wasn’t until Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Dillon gave a shot to Chastain in the tri-oval, sending the No. 1 Chevrolet into the back of Larson. Larson responded by making a move for the lead.
Jones went high to block Larson, however, all momentum was lost for the GMS/Petty No. 43 and Chastain utilized a push from Dillon to win the race to the checkered flag.
“Holy cow,” Chastain said in disbelief. “I’m always the one going to the top too early, and making the mistake. There at the end, it was like 8 to go, and I was like ‘I’m not going up there again,’ I did that a couple times today. I was like ‘I’ll just ride the bottom, I’m not going to lose the race for us, I’ll just let them.’
“I have no idea, they just kept going up,” Chastian continued. “They just kept moving out of the way.”
In a heartbreaking run, Jones ended up sixth at the finish.
“It’s typical here, we’ve been close here so many times in this race and the fall race,” Jones said. “(The) U.S. Air Force Chevy had good speed, and just felt good to be out front. Coming there that last lap, we were single file, I felt pretty good about it, but they kind of doubled up behind us, and that top lane was getting some momentum. Looking back, I wish I would’ve stayed on the bottom and let the 1 push me, I didn’t realize they were coming with that much speed.”
Chastain earned the first victory for Trackhouse Racing at Circuit of The Americas four weeks ago, and put the Justin Marks-owned team in victory lane again on Sunday.
“Justin Marks and what he laid out for us, was ambitious, and I had no idea what to expect other than I knew I had my group from last year,” Chastain said. “We’ve got partners. They’re believing in us. We started the year off with a lot of races open, we’re almost full now, and it’s because of the vision of Justin Marks.”
Stage One
The first stage stayed caution-free until Daniel Hemric got loose in turn three with four laps to go, coming back up the track and collecting Chase Briscoe and Chris Buescher.
Briscoe felt that the difficulty of building momentum was different than what the drivers felt at Daytona in February.
“Yeah, it was going to be fun I thought,” Briscoe said. “I felt like the cars were way more stable than Daytona so you could get way more aggressive. It was weird, you couldn’t build runs. I was hitting the rev limiter anytime I had a run at all. It was going to be really hard to develop a huge run.”
Bubba Wallace, who won the October race at Talladega, won the stage for 23XI Racing.
Stage Two
Cautions began to pile on in stage two, highlighted by a stack up on a restart that took out Team Penske’s Joey Logano and Trackhouse Racing driver Daniel Suárez among others.
“I felt a lot of things that didn’t feel good, I will tell you that much,” Logano said. “The car got banged up pretty good there. We were getting pushed back and forth and I was the one that got shuffled to the right and hit the wall and came back in front of the field. That is superspeedway racing.”
A blown tire from B.J. McLeod, along with a spin from Cody Ware drew yellow flags within the stage.
William Byron wheeled his No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet to the stage two win, in front of teammates Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott.
Stage Three
Strategy began to be a factor in the final stage, with the final round of pit stops allowing teams to try and gain an advantage. The Fords of Brad Keselowski, Kevin Harvick, and Ryan Blaney led a group of cars down first with 30 laps to go.
Then, coming out of pit lane, polesitter Christopher Bell would collide with Kyle Busch, sending the No. 20 for a spin harmlessly along the front stretch apron. No caution would come out during the incident.
After the pit cycle was over, Denny Hamlin wheeled the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota to the lead. However, that would be short-lived as Kyle Larson took over with 18 laps to go.
Miraculously, the final stage remained caution-free, as drivers jockeyed for positions in the closing laps.
Kyle Busch, who wound up third after the incident with Christopher Bell, voiced his opinion on a day that was difficult for a lot of drivers to pass.
“It was just hard to pass all day,” Busch said. “Really there at the end if two lanes were formed and they were pushing, there wasn’t really enough for a third lane to form to get any speed going. It was just kind of a stuck in line, if you will, in the first few lanes, but overall, the Interstate Batteries Camry performed to the best we could. We got up front there and we got shucked out of line. Every time we got up front, we got shucked out of line. That was frustrating. Thankfully we were able to salvage and get back some of those guys that were getting a little bit squirrely at the end and get ourselves a P3, so we will take it and go on.”
Busch’s teammate Martin Truex Jr., who earned his second top-five of the season in fifth, also chimed in on the difficulty of passing.
“It got a little hairy there at the end. Guys just made bonsai moves, coming from everywhere, but we were able to put our Bass Pro Shops Camry in a pretty good spot there. We ran up front all day. We are just outnumbered. We get outnumbered. You get up there and run with 10 Chevys and you are the lone Toyota, you can’t do anything. You are stuck. You just have to ride in line. It was a tough day from that standpoint, but overall, it was a good day. Top-fives in both stages, I think, and the race. We have had a tough couple of weeks, so we needed that, but you always want to win.”