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Dropping the Hammer: Lack of Focus on Ross Chastain Aided Spoiler Win

KANSAS CITY, Kansas — As the burnout smoke cleared and a smashed watermelon began soaking into the track surface, Ross Chastain spoke like a racecar driver who hadn’t won — or mattered — in a long time.

“There’s been times this year where we couldn’t have disrupted the minnow pond outside of Darlington [Racewa], let alone a Cup race,” Chastain told NBC Sports on the frontstretch of Kansas Speedway, minutes after winning Sunday’s (Sept. 29) Hollywood Casino 400.

It had been 10 months since Chastain last went to a NASCAR Cup victory lane. It had also been four weeks since his team failed to make the playoffs for the first time in Trackhouse Racing’s history.

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The drought (29 races) and not being in the playoffs may have factored into the velocity of Chastain’s traditional watermelon throw.

“I think I threw it harder than normal,” Chastain said. “It was pulverized.”

When Chastain and Trackhouse Racing’s No. 1 team does disrupt the playoff waters, it comes at incredibly timely moments.

For the second time in two years, Chastain kicked dirt on the playoff game board.

The first was in last year’s championship race at Phoenix Raceway. Chastain put up a fight with the title hopefuls and actually won the race, the first time in the elimination era the eventual champion didn’t go to victory lane.

Sunday, Chastain did it in the only “normal” race of the Round of 12, before visits to Talladega Superspeedway and the hybrid road course at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

His win denied anyone the use of five playoff points that come with a race win. He followed Chris Buescher‘s spoiler win in the first round at Watkins Glen International.

But it didn’t come without some close calls.

Chastain had to navigate a thrilling battle with childhood idol — and fellow non-playoff driver — Kyle Busch in the middle of the final stage.

Together, they swapped the lead eight times from lap 203 to lap 235.

That came with it’s own potential pitfalls, including both getting into the wall multiple times.

“Earlier I saw (Busch) drive it in the fence unforced,” Chastain recalled of the first instance. “I got by him. That lap I drove it in the fence and gave him the lead back. I couldn’t believe that, one, Kyle Busch, the guy I idolized as a kid, drove it in the fence as I ran second and then also that then I got the lead, and I did the same thing.”

Oddly, Chastain was “proud” to make the same mistake as Busch.

“Because in the lead of a Cup race with less than, I don’t know, was there 50 laps to go or something, I’m willing to run that close to the wall,” Chastain explained. “I grew up clipping the grass. I grew up running as low as you could, kicked dirt up for the guy behind to hit. Run the bottom. You always ran the bottom.

“To run the top is not natural.”

The last lead change between them, on lap 235, came right before misfortune for Busch.

That’s when Busch attempted to lap the playoff car of Chase Briscoe on the outside, as they exited turn 2. Chastain was right behind them.

“(Busch) fought the entire turn to get outside of [Briscoe],” Chastain said. “He was in the most vulnerable spot he could be to get loose, and he slapped the wall and spun out unforced.”

Chastain “was happy that he spun to the left. If he spins back to the right, I probably pile drive him. At that point I’m committed.”

He added that “it was by the racing chance, the racing luck that I made it by.”

Chastain has no problem playing spoiler to the likes of William Byron and Alex Bowman, two of the playoff drivers who gave chase to him in the final stage.

Though, he admitted, it’s “tough in the moment” when he’s “looking in the rearview camera” and sees Byron and Bowman.

Byron specifically, because the Hendrick Motorsports driver is “one of the few guys that I can say I’m buddies with, and we are kind of aligned in life. Although we come from different backgrounds, we kind of came to the central point, and we get along more than I get along with most people.

“Would I have loved to see the 24 drive into victory lane and lock himself into the round of 8? Sure. But not enough to pass the 1 car because I’m driving it. It was everything that I could do to stay in front of him.”

Going further, Chastain said he wished teammate Daniel Suarez “was the one winning, but not at the expense of the 1 car and not at the expense of me.

“At the end of the day would I truly give up the win? I would not. I don’t care. It could lock them into anything. If I have a chance to win, I’m going to win.”

Not making the playoff field has had one benefit for Chastain.

A lack of a focus on him.

“I’ve never been so happy to watch(the media) walk by, everybody in this room,” Chastain said. “I’ve never been so happy to watch Netflix walk the other way when I get there. Like, the boom mics are going that way. They’re following Daniel [Suarez]. … But none of it’s about me.”

When it comes to exposure for his team, Chastain explained, “We want to let y’all see what we’re doing. We want to open the curtain, but I have seen that because we weren’t having to do all the other stuff that there was some benefits to it. I had more time to do the things that I thought were better for the racecar.”

He added, “it’s a whole lot easier than having distractions.”

Crew chief Phil Surgen said not making the postseason was a “kick” and “pretty deflating” for his team.

But In Surgen’s view, Sunday’s result wasn’t really a surprise.

As the regular season came to a close Surgen “wouldn’t have guessed” that Chastain, Bubba Wallace and Buescher would all miss the postseason.

“But we rolled around to the next week,” Surgen said. “I think we scored the second most points in the first round of the playoffs of anybody. So there it just goes to show you that there’s no give up here. We’re not laying down.”

Chastain earned 103 points in the first three races of the playoffs, including the 10 that came with winning the second stage at Watkins Glen International before he finished fourth that day.

In all, 11 playoff points will go unused from the first four playoff races, six of them eliminated by Chastain himself.

Surgen said the goal for the last six races of 2024 is simple: Go out and win and finish 17th in the points, the highest possible for the No. 1 team after missing the postseason.

“There isn’t a huge concerted effort to do a lot different,” Surgen said. “We’re not going to throw any Hail Marys or take any huge risks, but it does give us a little bit more flexibility at points in the race. Today is a perfect example. End of stage two, probably four or five points on the table. We chose not to take those in lieu of track position after the second stage.

“So those little things can change, but we’re not throwing any Hail Marys.

Daniel McFadin is a 10-year veteran of the NASCAR media corp. He wrote for NBC Sports from 2015 to October 2020. He currently works full time for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and is lead reporter and an editor for Frontstretch. He is also host of the NASCAR podcast "Dropping the Hammer with Daniel McFadin" presented by Democrat-Gazette.

You can email him at danielmcfadin@gmail.com.