Most of the time when it comes to the final 10 races in the NASCAR season, you will find someone with a yellow windshield banner in victory lane.
But that wasn’t the case when NASCAR came to the Heartland of America, as Ross Chastain picked up his fifth career win on the 1.5 mile speedway in Kansas Speedway.
“For us on this No. 1 team, it’s what cup racing is all about. It’s what Justin Marks bought into Trackhouse with Pitbull, bought into NASCAR with Trackhouse to do stuff like this, to disrupt. Look, there’s been times this year where we couldn’t have disrupted the minnow pond outside of Darlington, let alone a cup race. It’s hard. It’s really tough. To come and do this, there are times where I didn’t think after practicing qualifying we had what it took. I thought we have been way stronger here in the past. It didn’t feel great all day, but our Kubota Chevy, it was better as the rubber went down, and the adjustments were great.”
It was a day where most thought either Kyle Larson or Denny Hamlin would end up in victory lane, but both actually had issues throughout the race that set them back in the middle of the field.
Larson ended up in the wall on lap 20 of the 267 lap event, causing damage to his diffuser and slowing him down and earning him a 27th place finish in his No. 5 Chevrolet Camaro.
Hamlin on the other hand had a fast No. 11 Toyota Camry throughout the event, hanging around in the top 10 all day. Unfortunately, he had problems in pit road, which caused him to only lead one lap and finish in the eighth position. He later stated, “Had a crappy day on pit road and we didn’t get the finish we deserved.” When asked about Talladega next weekend, he said that he isn’t even thinking about the 2.67 mile superspeedway.
Chastain’s team barely missed out on the NASCAR Playoffs on Labor Day in Darlington, which most in the industry had him as one of the 16 drivers battling for a championship. When asked how much the Trackhouse team is regrouping for next year versus going out and trying to get wins, Crew Chief Phil Surgen commented on their strategy.
“Yeah, there isn’t a huge concerted effort to do a lot different. Obviously given our points position, we’re looking at what the No. 17 (Chris Buescher), the No. 23 (Bubba Wallace), and that group does, and our goal is to finish 17th in points. That’s the best we can do.
“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.”
While missing the Playoffs is disappointing, Chastain looks on the brighter side of things, and says that things aren’t so bad at the No. 1 camp.
“I’ve never been so happy to watch y’all walk by,” Chastain said, referring to the media. “When we finished pretty good and we led in practice yesterday, not a single TV, nothing, interview. I’m, like, ‘Oh, that’s pretty awesome.’ But I will still sign up for every interview. We want to let all of y’all in. We want to open the curtain, but I have seen that because we weren’t having to do all the other stuff that there were some benefits to it. I had more time to do the things that I thought were better for the race car. Anybody in business in the room and anybody listening, watching knows that you can just go to work when you want to go to work, it’s a whole lot easier than having distractions.”
Next week, Chastain and many others look to play spoiler once again at Talladega Superspeedway at the second race in the second round of the Playoffs, where you expect the unexpected.
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