These days, there are two paths to becoming a front-running NASCAR Cup Series driver.
The first, and more common, sees guys like Tyler Reddick, Christopher Bell and William Byron identified as superstars in the making from their teenage years. Their ascent up the NASCAR ladder is funded by one of the sport’s biggest teams or a manufacturer development program. They win championships at the NASCAR Camping World Truck or Xfinity series level, earn themselves a ton of race wins and fans and explode onto the scene with sky-high expectations.
Then it takes them a couple of years, and maybe a jump from a satellite team to the mothership, to gather the skills and experience they need to run with the big dogs and, usually at around the 100-start mark, emerge as a regular race winner. Reddick, Bell and Byron have all crossed this mark in 2022, earning the first multi-win seasons of their career and impressing viewers.
RETWEET to congratulate @TylerReddick!
He wins at @TXMotorSpeedway, and the team says they're "NOT DONE YET!" pic.twitter.com/0FSfazCVaa
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) September 26, 2022
The other path, the one less traveled by, was the one favored by old-school NASCAR heroes. Dale Earnhardt and Mark Martin both bounced around back-of-the-pack teams gathering experience at the Cup level, so that when that big break finally came around, they’d be prepared to explode out of the gate in Rod Osterlund or Jack Roush’s top-tier equipment.
This is the path taken by Bubba Wallace and Ross Chastain, both of whom ground it out at less-competitive teams for years before finally achieving success in the form of two wins apiece with high-profile moves to exciting new programs in 23XI Racing and Trackhouse Racing Team, respectively.
But something else unites Wallace and Chastain; a twist on what could easily be fan-favorite underdog stories. As of last Sunday, Oct. 16, they are the two drivers who’ve done the most embarrassing, egregious examples of intentional contact this season, creating a dark cloud over career-high seasons for both.
After claiming his first career pole position and leading 22 laps in August’s race at Michigan International Speedway, Wallace teared up in post-race interviews.
“I’ll wear this one on my heart for a while,” Wallace, who fell just under three seconds short of his second career victory, said. “I failed everybody. … I want to win so bad, and this was the best opportunity.”
"I failed everybody."
Bubba Wallace showed emotion after a runner-up finish at Michigan, replaying what he could have done differently to get the win. #NASCAR pic.twitter.com/j7M6sXWUXY
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) August 7, 2022
Of course, we have the benefit of hindsight and know what happened just a few weeks later. At Kansas Speedway, Wallace took the lead late and held off all comers to claim a jubilant second career win. And at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, he ran up front early, even winning the first stage.
Until, well …
Bubba Wallace has been suspended by #NASCAR for intentionally wrecking Kyle Larson under green.
Here’s another look at the incident. pic.twitter.com/ap7tiTa0Tr
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) October 18, 2022
Wallace wears his emotions on his sleeves and has historically been open about what he’s thinking and feeling. That makes this column easy to write.
The driver of the Nos. 23 or 45 (or I guess this week neither) is at a crossroads in his career. He’s crossed over from underdog driver who can only win at superspeedways, through the limbo that was the first year-and-a-half of 23XI to become a driver who regularly contends at the front on NASCAR’s bread-and-butter 1.5-mile racetracks. Michigan, Kansas and Vegas — he could have won all of them. He was fast at Nashville Superspeedway and Charlotte Motor Speedway, and had he not been suspended, he’d likely add Homestead-Miami Speedway to that number, let alone the pack races at which he made his name.
“This was the best opportunity,” Wallace lamented after Michigan.
“I’m kind of new [to] running up front … I don’t lift,” is what he said after Las Vegas.
He’s right about one thing — he is new to running up front. The question is, will he get used to it?
I don’t mean will he continue to have the speed. At this point, I that’s settled. Wallace and 23XI have the speed to run up front consistently.
The question is, will he change the way he thinks about it? Until the win at Kansas, running up front was a rare occurrence for Wallace, especially at a non-superspeedway race. He needed to win, both to legitimize his career in the minds of some (including his own) and to guarantee his team a spot in the playoffs. From now on, he needs to win for the same reason Reddick, Joey Logano or Chase Elliott does.
Or Chastain, for that matter.
Chastain’s career likewise took the old-school path at multiple NASCAR levels. He busted his butt at JD Motorsports in the Xfinity Series to earn a few one-off starts with Chip Ganassi Racing, then did the same thing to earn himself a seat at the upstart Kaulig Racing. He was doing it simultaneously at the Cup level too, paying his dues in Premium Motorsports’ No. 15 before he earned his big break at Ganassi and later Trackhouse.
Chastain fired off his first two wins in rapid succession at Circuit of the Americas and Talladega Superspeedway in early 2022 before cooling off a bit as the year went on.
Well, cooling off in terms of wins. He stayed just as fired up as he’s always been behind the wheel. Just ask Denny Hamlin.
"Denny is not gonna be happy about that." 👀
Contact from Ross Chastain sends Denny Hamlin into the wall at Gateway. https://t.co/5AReaSwuvG pic.twitter.com/S3rwcPvwVy
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) June 5, 2022
Chastain, the humble watermelon farmer, has had to fight tooth and nail for everything in his career, and that’s always been reflected in his driving. His first start for Ganassi in the Xfinity Series saw an overaggressive move to defend the lead from Kevin Harvick that eliminated the both of them from contention, prompting Harvick to say, “he’ll never get to drive many [good cars] again.”
Here's what happened between Ross Chastain and Kevin Harvick.
Harvick pinched him into the wall, and Chastain appeared to give a little payback. #NASCARThrowback pic.twitter.com/FaLakXCkQ7
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) September 1, 2018
Chastain responded, “I was just trying to race … if I made a mistake, it’s on me.”
That’s what has made covering Chastain so much fun this year. He drives like a maniac then calmly explains how he considers it all fair in love and stock car racing (and usually in a rain-delay interview with Parker Kligerman that seems to last 20 minutes).
Chastain is in the same boat as Wallace. He treats every race he’s running up front as his last ever shot to win. And of course, it might be. It might be for any driver at any point. In many ways, that’s what makes the two of them such an exciting addition to the front-runners and has made this wild 2022 season one for the ages.
Would you rather they drive like Alex Bowman?
Bowman followed a similar path to Chastain, spending a few years as a journeyman at BK Racing and Tommy Baldwin Racing before a stint as Hendrick Motorsports’ simulator driver earned him his big break for NASCAR’s winningest team.
Nothing better sums up Bowman’s first three seasons at HMS than the 2019 spring race at Talladega. Bowman shoved his teammate Elliott to the lead with four laps remaining, then held off the rest of the pack to ensure his fellow HMS driver took the checkered flag. It almost looked like the Arizona native didn’t want to win.
Early HMS-era Bowman was a company man through and through, one who didn’t want to do anything to put his newfound job security at risk. I don’t blame him for that. But after a 2021 season that saw him win four races (each in a more farcical manner than the next) and sign his first multi-year extension, he became a bit more aggressive, a bit more edgy and a lot more sarcastic.
Family sport friendly… 18% of the proceeds backing into an animal shelter near you https://t.co/YTNdSOowYQ
— Alex Bowman (@Alex_Bowman) March 7, 2022
Returning to his one-win-per-year pattern and eliminated early from the playoffs due to a concussion, we’ll have to wait a bit longer to see what the new Bowman does with his back against the wall, but I’m willing to predict it won’t be all bark and no bite.
The signs are there. In 2021, Bowman matured into his final form as a Cup star willing to ruffle a few feathers on the way to the checkered flag, and Chastain and Wallace will soon have to move in the opposite direction. It’s likely that this turn of pace for the Nos. 1 and 45 will continue into 2023 and beyond. As for when they’ll stop racing like every lap is do-or-die, start racing smarter.
As for whether or not they’ll start winning more regularly, only time will tell.
Jack Swansey primarily covers open-wheel racing for Frontstretch and co-hosts The Pit Straight Podcast,but you can also catch him writing about NASCAR, sports cars, and anything else with four wheels and a motor. Originally from North Carolina and now residing in Los Angeles, he joined the site as Sunday news writer midway through 2022 and is an avid collector (some would say hoarder) of die-cast cars.