March 27, 2022 | By Lee Spencer

Ross Chastain celebrates sweet breakthrough win at COTA

Ross Chastain enjoyed the sweet taste of victory at Circuit of the Americas with a celebratory watermelon smash on Sunday.

In his 121st Cup start—and following three-straight podium finishes—the 29-year-old racer scored his first win and the first victory for Trackhouse Racing.

In a three-way battle coming to the checkers, AJ Allmendinger attempted the bump and run on Chastain in Turn 15, while Alex Bowman played spoiler. Bowman grabbed the point, then Chastain returned the favor to Dinger. As the Nos. 16 and 48 Chevrolets banged doors and Allmendinger slid off the course, Chastain saw a lane and an opportunity to regain the lead—and he didn’t look back.

“Hell yeah, so proud of you guys. Oh my god, Justin, we did it,” Chastain exclaimed to the No. 1 crew and team owner Justin Marks.

Bowman finished 1.331-seconds behind Chastain and quickly climbed out of his car which caught on fire coming to the line. Despite his disappointment, Bowman went to congratulate Chastain on his first win.

“So proud of my team and really proud of Ross,” Bowman said. “I train with Ross during the week quite a bit. He's a friend. He is a pain in the ass, but I tell him that all the time. So, yes, happy for him, obviously I'm on the wrong side of it, right? I'm the one in the kitty litter in turn 19.

“But I know what he's feeling right now and I'm pumped for him and pumped for all of the hard work that he's put into this.”

Christopher Bell, who experienced power steering issues rallied from 38th to finish third. Chase Elliott, Tyler Reddick, Ryan Blaney, Martin Truex Jr., Austin Cindric, Erik Jones and Austin Dillon rounded out the top 10.

Chastain’s teammate, Daniel Suarez, took the lead from polesitter Blaney on the first lap and held on to win Stage 1 on Lap 15. However, on the Lap 18 restart, Suarez spun in Turn 1 after a left rear tire went flat. He finished 24th.

Denny Hamlin won the second stage on Lap 30, but developed steering issues and finished 18th. The stage conclusions were the only cautions in the first half of the race, but the fireworks would follow on the next restart. Joey Logano had issues all day. He slid off the course after locking up the brakes in Turn 1 to ignite the third caution as Chastain muscled his way to the front for the first time on Lap 33. Joey Hand and Austin Cindric also spun off of the track on the same circuit.

Jones stalled in Turn 11 to trigger the fourth caution. Chastain led nine laps before the fifth caution occurred after Bubba Wallace’s wheel rolled off of the No. 23 Chevy in Turn 16. After recovering to 12th, Logano spun again on the same lap. Allmendinger led a circuit before Chase Briscoe grabbed the lead on Lap 47. Chastain came right back to the point in the next lap.

His progress was stalled by Ricky Stenhouse Jr., breaking down on Lap 54 followed by fuel on the track four laps later. Loris Hezemans stalled in Turn 3 on Lap 63 for Caution 8 ending an 18-lap run for Chastain. Once again, Allmendinger fought to the front. He gave Chastain the bumper entering Turn 1, Reddick went to the inside and grabbed the lead with three laps remaining.

Meanwhile, Joey Logano slipped into the gravel exiting Turn 1 and piledrove Kyle Larson into the retaining wall, then collected Kurt Busch in the process to ignite the ninth caution and final caution and send the race into overtime.

When the race finally returned to green, Allmendinger went to the inside of Reddick in Turn 1—opening the door for Chastain to regain the point on the outside. Chastain held a mere .931-second lead over Allmendinger coming to the white flag as Bowman seized third from Reddick. The three drivers battled for the lead with Allmendinger getting the worse of it.

“I was doing everything I could do to try to sweep the weekend,” said Allmendinger, who finished 33rd. “We were that close. At the end of the day, each person has to make the move that they're comfortable with, and that's fine. So we're at the end of the day, we know we had a shot to win the race.

“It's tough to win a cup race, so when you put yourself in a position to legitimately run up front all day and have a shot to win it, it's a pretty great day. Unfortunately, just needed about two more corners.”

Two years ago, Chastain was Allmendinger’s teammate at Kaulig in the Xfinity Series. He credits the veteran with upping his road course prowess. But on Sunday, the journeyman racer and watermelon farmer from Alva, Florida, he wasn’t going down without a fight.

“It's insane,” Chastain said. “To go up against some of the best with AJ, I know he is going to be upset with me; but we raced hard, both of us, and he owes me one. But when it comes to a Cup win, man, I can't let that go down without a fight.”

Or without a celebratory piece of watermelon that Chastain rescued from the hot Texas asphalt as he reflected on his win.

“It's never tasted sweeter, I got to tell you,” he said. “I don't know how we got back by. I was so worried about AJ on the second-to-last restart that I let Tyler drive right by both of us. And AJ is so good. I've learned so much from him. And it was like how do you go beat the guy? He taught me so much.

“I've learned so much from so many people from 4-17 (Southern) Speedway (Punta Gorda, Fla.) back home with my dad. I was thinking about on those late restarts, my dad used to make me race on old tires, and back then I was not going to win. It was in my head before I even started. It crossed my mind, like, We're not going to win, we're on old tires, but I couldn't think that way. I thought neutral. Chevrolet, everything they do for me gave me the tools to try to go execute and we did it.”