DARLINGTON, S.C. — Ross Chastain strikes again. This time, though, not after a race but in a pivotal moment on the track.
Chastain, battling for the lead on the first lap on a restart with six laps remaining at Darlington Raceway, tried to pinch Kyle Larson to force him to lose momentum in the upper groove by the wall, but the move went awry — with Chastain sliding into Larson, wrecking himself and ruining Larson’s race-winning hopes.
It marked the third time in four weeks where Chastain was involved in a wreck where he didn’t intentionally get into someone but did have contact. His aggressive style, when things go well, is celebrated but he has recently frustrated many drivers and teams, with it coming to a head last week when he and Noah Gragson got into a fracas.
The beneficiary this week was Byron, who earned his third win of the year. Following Byron across the finish line were Kevin Harvick, Chase Elliott, Brad Keselowski and Bubba Wallace.
Takeaways from Darlington:
Chastain-Larson Tangle
Chastain wasn’t able to continue from the accident while Larson finished 20th.
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“Full commit into [Turn] 1,” Chastain said. “I got really tight and drove up and turned myself. I wanted to squeeze him. I wanted to push him up. We had been trading back-and-forth all day.
“I wanted to push him up for sure, but I definitely didn’t want to turn myself into him.”
‘I wanted to squeeze him’
Ross Chastain talked about his strategy around battling Kyle Larson at the end of the Goodyear 400.
Larson didn’t comment after the race. But his team owner, Rick Hendrick, at the Byron team winning news conference, had some harsh words.
“You just don’t run people up in the fence,” Hendrick said. “He’s going to make a lot of enemies. It’s hard to win a championship when you’ve got a lot of paybacks out there. … He’s got a lot of talent, but he’s making a lot of enemies out here.”
Chastain repeated his comments when asked if he needed to race Larson differently moving forward.
“We all go race and I fully committed into [Turn] 1 and wanted to squeeze him up — I didn’t want to turn myself across his nose for sure,” he said outside the track medical center. “That’s not how I wanted to be talking to y’all here. Another incredible day for Trackhouse.”
Chastain-Truex Tangle
Chastain said his car wasn’t the same after he and Truex had an incident at the end of the second stage when Truex ran him a little close to the wall and Chastain bounced off the wall and into Truex.
Truex, who led 145 of the first 150 laps, ended up wrecking late in the race on a restart.
“It was just an unfortunate deal,” Truex said. “There was plenty of room there and he just bounced off the wall and hit me and knocked the toe out in the right front and we were pretty crappy from there.”
Byron Celebrates Win 100 For 24
William Byron earned the 100th victory for the No. 24 car, which was made famous by team co-owner Jeff Gordon.
It also marked the third win of the season for Byron. Last year, Byron had two wins in the first eight races and didn’t win again.
This year, he won two of the first four races and it was a significant moment to not have another slump after the victories.
‘Things have a way of working out’
William Byron spoke to Jamie Little after he won at Darlington.
“We had kind of a chip and a little bit of just trying not to let that happen again, so we’ve been probably overexerting ourselves a little bit just to make sure that we don’t repeat,” Byron said.
“Now I think we’re safely in a groove here where we’ve got to continue our processes, continue what got us here, but it definitely feels different than what we had last year where I felt like after we won those couple races we had just kind of a false confidence. We’ve learned from that.”
Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including the past 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass, and sign up for the FOX Sports NASCAR Newsletter with Bob Pockrass.
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