Ross Chastain successfully completed the journey from worst to first, passing William Byron with six laps to go to win the Coca-Cola 600 on Sunday (May 25). It is Chastain’s sixth career Cup Series victory and his first of 2025 to secure a playoff spot.
With long green flag runs and a nearly 20-year-old surface, there was very little variety in pit strategy Sunday night. It was four fresh Goodyear tires every trip down pit road, no questions asked.
Between that and the marathon 400-lap distance, execution and avoiding costly mistakes on pit stops became of the utmost importance. Most of the teams got the memo, but a few did not.
Trouble For Toyota on Final Round of Pit Stops
Denny Hamlin piloted one of the dominant cars of the night with his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. His 53 laps lead was the second most of any driver, trailing only Byron’s race-high 283 of 400 laps led.
However, it all came undone on the final round of green flag pit stops. On lap 348, Hamlin followed Byron down pit road, and he came out right with him following a quick 8.9-second pit stop.
Unfortunately, the No. 11 crew did not get all the fuel they needed out of the second can, leaving Hamlin several laps short on fuel. With 12 laps left, Hamlin ran out of fuel and reluctantly came back to his pit stall to get enough in the tank for the finish. Just like that, Hamlin went from battling Byron for the win to falling to 16th in the final running order.
“I tried to do everything I could for the National Debt Relief Toyota team,” Hamlin said post-race. “Unfortunately, we just didn’t get enough gas in it and had to come back in.”
Just a few laps after Hamlin’s pit stop, Tyler Reddick, one of Hamlin’s drivers for 23XI Racing, pitted from the top five and came out with a clean pit stop. However, pit road is not just about the performance of the crew but also that of the driver, and Reddick sped on his way off of pit road. Forced to do a pass-through penalty under green, Reddick plummeted to a 26th-place finish, two laps down.
A third Toyota driver that had lesser trouble during the final stage was Christopher Bell. When he came down pit road, Bell’s No. 20 crew were slow changing the right-rear tire, clocking in at an unenviable 14.1 seconds for their pit stop. Bell still rallied for a top-10 finish in eighth, but there’s a good chance he finishes in the top five with a clean pit stop.
More Pit Road Mishaps
In addition to the issues listed above,
- On lap 45, polesitter Chase Briscoe had an uncontrolled tire on his first pit stop of the day, while Brad Keselowski got tagged with a vehicle interference penalty. The good news is that both drivers made a mistake very early in the longest race of the season, giving them penalty of time recover. And recover they did, as Briscoe and Keselowski finished third and fifth, respectively.
- Connor Zilisch had a rough introduction to Cup Series oval racing Sunday night, and his adversity included a penalty for driving through too many pit boxes on lap 239. Thanks to some attrition and clean final stage, Zilisch moved up a bit to a 23rd-place showing.
- On lap 104, Michael McDowell seemingly won the race off of pit road, but in reality, he missed his pit stall. McDowell ultimately recovered to finish a solid seventh.
- Riley Herbst added to Toyota’s pit road woes on lap 157 when he spun on pit entry. Herbst’s tough rookie season in the No. 35 23XI Racing Toyota, settling for 28th at the end of the night.
Pit Crew of the Race: No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet
Let’s get back to our race winner. Straight off of the hauler, the No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet showed a lot of speed, posting the best 10-lap, 15-lap, and 20-lap averages in practice.
However, the No. 1 team’s weekend then literally went sideways. Towards the end of the practice session, Chastain blew a left-rear tire, spun and hit the wall, wrecking the team’s primary car.
Undeterred, the No. 1 team, led by crew chief Phil Surgen, went back to the Trackhouse race shop just six miles away and pulled an all-nighter to get the backup car ready for the 600.
“Yeah, it was a little bit of a stretch,” Surgen said about the team’s late-night prep. “It was a long night for sure. This win belongs to all of the men and women at Trackhouse. We had 30 people there last night at 10 o’clock, and the last guys didn’t leave until 2:30.”
Operating on about three hours of sleep, the No. 1 team stepped their game up for the longest race of the year. Taking the green from the tail of the field, Chastain steadily inched his way through the field on the track, while Surgen and the crew turned in fast pit stops and made the right adjustments to the No. 1 Chevrolet to keep up with the changing racetrack.
All of that added up to a race win for Chastain. While the rest of Trackhouse continues to struggle, Chastain and the No. 1 team might have just thrown their hat in the ring as potential championship contender.
Look Ahead to Next Week
The Cup Series will load up the hauler and head to the Music City for the running of the Cracker Barrel 400 at Nashville Superspeedway next Sunday, June 1. Race coverage begins at 7 p.m. ET on Amazon Prime Video.
The drivers will go from the old asphalt surface of Charlotte to the even older concrete surface at Nashville, which has been in place since the track opened in 2001. It will be interesting to see how the different surface type impacts tire wear for the teams.
Andrew Stoddard joined Frontstretch in May of 2022 as an iRacing contributor. He is a graduate of Hampden-Sydney College, the University of Richmond, and VCU. He works as an athletic communications specialist at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va.