Who… should you be talking about after the race?
You thought you’d seen this before.
William Byron won the first stage. He won the second and third stages, too. He was still leading with 10 to go. All in all, Byron led 14 times for 283 of 400 laps. Byron wasn’t the first driver to dominate the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, and he was looking to add his name to the win list. His No. 24 team kept up with the changing track and had him in good position after his final pit stop of the night.
But they couldn’t keep up with a charging Ross Chastain.
Chastain didn’t lead a hundred laps. He didn’t even lead 10. Chastain led twice for eight laps … including the last five.
Chastain began to slowly run down Byron in the final 25 laps. He dispatched second-place Denny Hamlin, who was having fuel issues, and methodically gained on Byron. When his first attempt at a pass didn’t work as planned, Chastain didn’t get overly aggressive as he once might have.
Instead he backed off for a few laps, let his tires cool a little. And that, as much as the bold move he made to Byron’s inside, was the winning move. Chastain passed Byron with just five laps left and held the No. 24 off for the win.
It’s Chastain’s sixth career win, and he becomes the fourth driver in NASCAR history to win after starting 40th.
Chastain spun in practice on Saturday (May 24), and the result was enough damage to warrant a back-up car. Chastain’s team stayed until 2:30 a.m. ET on Sunday morning (May 25) working on getting it race-ready, and returned at 5:30 a.m. ET on Sunday morning to finish the job. Chastain rewarded their dedication by running a smart, calculated race in which he didn’t lose his cool or overdrive the car, just brought it from the back all the way to victory lane with a textbook performance.
On the other hand…
The racing gods were not kind to Kyle Larson on Sunday. His start to “the Double” was inauspicious as Larson crashed out of the Indianapolis 500 on a restart just shy of the halfway mark. As a result, he made it to Charlotte in plenty of time to start the Coca-Cola 600 (had he not crashed, he’d have had to retire from the 500 early to make the green flag), but a pair of crashes, one a solo incident with the wall while leading and one where he was collected by a sliding Daniel Suarez, ended Larson’s night after just 245 laps despite leading 34 laps early on.
He didn’t sound optimistic about attempting both races again anytime soon (this year’s attempt was the second in a two-year deal).
Larson wasn’t the only driver who looked like he had a car to contend and couldn’t be there at the end. Hamlin was one of a small handful of drivers who looked like he had the car to race with Chastain and Byron. But a fueling malfunction on what should have been the final pit stop forced Hamlin to pit again while Chastain was running down Byron for the win, Hamlin finished 16th after the extra stop.
What… does this mean for the points standings?
The top spot changes hands again this week, with Larson handing it back over to Byron, who now has a 29-point advantage over his teammate. Christopher Bell stays in third, gaining 11 points on the lead thanks to the swap up front. Chase Elliott remains in fourth, but Tyler Reddick takes fifth away from Ryan Blaney after both had issues Sunday night.
Hamlin gains one spot, also moving around Blaney to take sixth. Blaney falls to seventh. Chastain grabs three spots to move into eighth, with Joey Logano and Alex Bowman rounding out the top 10. Bubba Wallace falls out of the top 10 this week to 12th.
The big mover this week was AJ Allmendinger, who gained eight positions thanks to his fourth-place finish at Charlotte. He’s now well within reach of a playoff spot.
Sliding this week were Austin Dillon and Suarez, who each took a three-spot hit. Dillon falls to 24th while Suarez drops to 30th.
Where… did he come from?
Nobody came as far through the field as Chastain, but Brad Keselowski came close. Starting 35th, Kesleowski worked his way forward steadily. The No. 6 team kept up with the track and made the right adjustments all night long. Keselowski, who has struggled for much of 2025, ground out a fifth-place finish.
It’s not only Keselowski’s first top five of 2025, it’s also his first top 10. As RFK Racing has grown, Keselowski sometimes seems to take a back seat to his other drivers, but he led the way on NASCAR’s longest night.
RFK also saw Ryan Preece tie a career-best in top-10 finishes in a season after just 13 races. Keselowski’s team has boosted Preece and shown him to be a solid wheelman.
When… was the moment of truth?
One reason that the Coca-Cola 600 is one of NASCAR’s crown jewel races is because of the sheer difficulty of a 600-mile race. The attrition level is nowhere near where it once was, but the difficulty of keeping a racecar dialed in while the track changes drastically as the daylight fades and the asphalt cools.
Even while Byron was holding point for most of the night, there was some good racing through the field (and the broadcast showed a lot of it). And when it came down to the wire, Chastain was able to make things happen in dirty air to run Byron down.
The elephant in the room this week was the broadcast. The first of five races on Amazon Prime Video, it’s the first time Cup races have been streaming-only. Fans new to the Prime platform had the opportunity to catch all five races for free via a free 30-day trial offer (and if you did this, take advantage of it to watch the docuseries Earnhardt, which concludes this week and is excellent so far). The reality is, a lot of people are getting rid of cable in favor of streaming services, so the move is in step with a shift in the way people get broadcasts in general.
Overall, the Prime broadcast was very good — it wasn’t as over-produced as the FOX races have become. There were fewer bells and whistles, and that was good for the race. Prime had a solid variety of drivers and reporters who brought real insight and interest to the broadcast. It wasn’t a comedy show, and the team noticed drivers outside the major teams and deeper in the field.
Like it or not, NASCAR is reaching out to a wider range of viewers in an attempt to attract more fans. Streaming is a sign of the times, and Prime did it very well.
Why… should you be paying attention this week?
Charlotte marked the halfway point in the regular season. So far, there are eight teams whose tickets to the playoffs are punched thanks to wins, leaving nine spots up for grabs in the summer months.
There are also 10 full-time Cup drivers who had wins in 2024 who have not won this season. That number includes two former champions (Elliott and Blaney) and series veterans. It also includes a couple of surprise winners in Dillon and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. There are more of them than there opportunities to make the playoffs, and that’s not even accounting for new winners or drivers who haven’t won since before 2024.
This is when you may see some teams hit the panic button. Whether that means changes in pit crews or even crew chiefs, different race strategies and even the beginning of big changes for 2026, keep an eye on the teams currently outside the playoffs.
This week, the Cup Series pays its annual visit to Nashville Superspeedway. The four Cup races at the 1.33-mile concrete speedway have produced four different winners. Larson is the only driver to score top 10s in all four events, and that coupled with his 4.5 average finish makes him a clear favorite. Others to watch include former winners Elliott, Logano and Chastain, but if you’re looking for a dark horse, take a peek at Allmendinger, who has been quietly solid with a 13.3 average finish in three starts.
How… about this?
A year ago, it looked like a matter of time until Ty Gibbs claimed his first win, but Gibbs has struggled this year, entering the weekend at Charlotte 26th in points with just two top 10s to his name.
So here’s a bold prediction: Carson Hocevar may take that first trip to victory lane before Gibbs. He entered the weekend 19th in points, but has been making gains and has had runs inside the top 10 that didn’t end the way they hoped.
This week, Hocevar spun in qualifying and started 39th, but drove his way through the field and was running third just past halfway before his engine expired. Hocevar’s biggest problem has been his own aggression, but he clearly gained some confidence in the All-Star Open and if he can keep that and tame the aggression to a level that won’t take away good finishes, he’ll contend for wins. His finish on Sunday night was anything but indicative of how good Hocevar was.
Amy is an 20-year veteran NASCAR writer and a six-time National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) writing award winner, including first place awards for both columns and race coverage. As well as serving as Photo Editor, Amy writes The Big 6 (Mondays) after every NASCAR Cup Series race. She can also be found working on her bi-weekly columns Holding A Pretty Wheel (Tuesdays) and Only Yesterday (Wednesdays). A New Hampshire native whose heart is in North Carolina, Amy’s work credits have extended everywhere from driver Kenny Wallace’s website to Athlon Sports. She can also be heard weekly as a panelist on the Hard Left Turn podcast that can be found on AccessWDUN.com's Around the Track page.