LAS VEGAS — In his first Cup Series playoff outing, Ross Chastain continues to power on. In Sunday’s South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, he was staring a Championship 4 berth in the eyes.
While his Trackhouse Racing teammate Daniel Suarez led laps in the opening stage, Chastain was stuck back in 11th, missing out on stage points. With a good pit stop — the No. 1 team ranks high on the list of best pit crews on pit road in 2022 — and solid restart, Chastain was in second just one lap after the Stage 2 resumed.
From there, he wasn’t giving up valuable track position the rest of the race.
Chastain dropped to fourth at the end of the second stage, earning seven points. During the final stint, the No. 1 car was a mainstay in the top five and found himself running third on a restart with 16 laps to go. With Justin Haley and Chase Briscoe battling for the lead, Chastain made a three-wide move entering Turn 3 and came out with the lead.
Joey Logano, who was on fresher tires, chased him down with a handful of laps remaining. With three laps to go, the No. 22 Ford soared by, moving Chastain to second in the finishing order.
“It’s a really, really, really good kind of hurt,” Chastain said of his second-place run. “But it still hurts. You want to win, but you just ran second in a playoff race and competed all day long. We did almost everything right.”
The runner-up finish was Chastain’s 12th top-five finish of the season and second in the playoffs. Just being in contention to battle for a race win in the postseason is a dream come true for the two-time Cup race winner.
“I’ve watched my heroes and icons of the sport do this,” he said. “I just want a chance. I think maybe Mark Martin said it, ‘I don’t want them to give me the trophy, I just want them to give me a chance’ and we had that. A little fresher tires got us today.”
Chastain said his Chevrolet was good enough to do just about anything he wanted during the 4o0-mile race. Leading a race-high 68 laps, he thought he had a race winning car.
But once Logano got to Chastain on fresh tires, there wasn’t much Chastain could do, as he was hanging on with less grip. The only thing he could could do was aero block and hope Logano would run out of time.
“I just committed to what was best for my car that lap,” Chastain said, “and it was the top and he got just inside to my left rear door and from there we both drove into [Turn] 1 so deep. I had the wheel cranked all the way to the left and didn’t have quite enough turn with our older tires.”
With a calm demeanor, Chastain stayed cool about his upcoming approach at his home track, Homestead, and the following week at Martinsville. He’s potentially three weeks away from making his first Championship 4 appearance with a second-year team.
That’s a big deal on both fronts.
“We’re relevant and leading laps, both Daniel [Suarez] and I,” he said. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted. I don’t want the trophy, I just want a chance for it. Now that we’re here, I’m human and it hurts to lose. But we’re going to go to Homestead and have some fun.”
With three spots left open in the Championship 4, Chastain is sitting in the best shape, 18 points above the cutline.