April 24, 2022 | By Lee Spencer

Ross Chastain stays the course for Talladega win

Ross Chastain’s Cinderella season continued at Talladega Superspeedway on Sunday.

Chastain, who came from one lap down following a speeding penalty, recovered for his second victory of the season in the Geico 500.

The driver of the No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet was at the right place at the right time coming out of the final corner as a melee erupted behind him.

“Holy cow,” Chastain exclaimed after taking the checkered flag. “I didn’t do anything. I just stayed down there.”

Chastain was running third on the inside lane behind Jones and Larson with two laps remaining. Larson went high entering the tri-oval on the last lap, Jones went to block but it was too late. Chastain maintained his position on the low lane and inherited the lead and the win.

Chastain, who had never won a NASCAR Cup race before this season, climbed atop his car on the front stretch and slammed a watermelon on the asphalt to celebrate his second career win.

“I'm always the one going to the top too early, making the mistake, Chastain said while munching on a piece of watermelon. “At the end, it was like eight to go, I was like, I'm not going up there again. I did that a couple of times today. I was like, I'll just ride on the bottom. If it works, I'm not going to lose the race for us, I'll just let them.”

Austin Dillon, Kyle Busch, Kyle Larson, Martin Truex Jr., Erik Jones, Chase Elliott, Michael McDowell, Alex Bowman and Kevin Harvick rounded out the top 10.

Tyler Reddick lost power after his timing belt failed on Lap 32 and was the first driver out. Bubba Wallace won the first stage under caution after Daniel Hemric’s engine failed on Lap 57. He turned sideways into Chase Briscoe and collected Chris Buescher in the process.

Jones had the lead to start the second stage which was slowed by Greg Biffle stalling in Turn 4 and BJ McLeod spinning in Turn 2 after a wheel came off of the No. 78 car.

The race’s only “big one” occurred on the Lap 90 restart. Joey Logano was sandwiched between Jones and Wallace while running sixth entering Turn 1. Truex was running second but lost momentum. Jones checked up and Logano was squeezed up into the wall with a bump from Wallace. The No. 22 Ford bounced off the SAFER barrier then into Ty Dillon and Harrison Burton. Austin Cindric, Kyle Busch, Todd Gilliland, Cole Custer and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. all received damage in the incident.

William Byron, who led a race-high 38 laps, had the lead prior to the wreck and maintained the point to the Stage 2 win with his Hendrick teammates in tow. Jones regained the lead on the Lap126 restart for the final stage which remained anticlimactic until the finish. While the race featured 41 lead changes between 16 drivers, Jones held the point five times until the final lap. Denny Hamlin led nine laps but dropped from the lead to eighth—ahead of Kurt Busch—on Lap 171 due to a lack of fuel. He was forced to pit with two laps remaining and finished 18th.

Larson took the lead from Hamlin and traded the point with Jones three times before the final lap. Chastain had a front row seat for the exchange and simply laid in wait. Kurt Busch made a dramatic move from eighth on the outside lane to fourth with two to go. After taking the white flag, Busch went high and Truex came with the No. 45 Toyota with Wallace in tow. With a run, Busch was in a position to challenge the leader coming out of Turn 4, but Larson veered into Busch’s Toyota and demolished both of the 23XI Racing cars.

"I feel like I did a pretty near perfect job for me at a superspeedway until the last lap there,” said Larson following his first top-five result at Talladega.“Yeah, I should have, like, I think just kind of faked going high, then went back low. I had that run.

“Ross helped me with that run. It kind of baited me into going to the outside. Just a little inexperience probably there.

Jones attempted to regain control of the lead. With a push from Austin Dillon, Chastain had grabbed the position and held on until the start-finish line for the victory.

"We came from eighth there on that last lap, just kind of rode the bottom and got people baited off the top,” Dillon said. “We had a good push there at the end. I gave (Chastain) a good shove off of four and he kind of just drove away.”

While Jones would normally be pleased with a top-10 result, he was dejected by what could have been.

"Just the last lap, right? It's typical here,” Jones said. “Been close here so many times, in this race and the fall race. U.S. Air Force Chevy had good speed, felt good to be up front. Coming there that last lap, we were single file. I felt pretty good about it. They kind of doubled up behind us. That top lane was getting some momentum.

“Looking back, I wish I would have stayed at the bottom and let the 1 (Chastain) push me. I didn't realize they were coming with that much speed. But try to defend on the 5 (Larson), you're too far ahead already right here. Obviously, a defense on the 5 kind of gives the door to the 1. It is what it is. You're trying to just win the race. You can only see how much is going on from the seat. You're trying to make the best decision you can the last 1500 feet.”

Chastain joined Byron as the only driver with multiple wins this season. Although it took him 120 races to get his first win, Chastain has scored both victories in the last five races—and remained humbled by his achievement.

“I've wrecked myself so many times and gotten into it with guys,” Chastain said. “I've probably got a watermelon seed (between my teeth)…Justin Marks (Owner, Trackhouse) and what he laid out for us was ambitious. I had no idea, you know, what to expect other than I knew I had my group from last year, I had AdventHealth, the Moose, now with Worldwide Express and Jockey coming onboard, we've got partners. They're believing in us.

“We started the year with a lot of races open. We're almost full now. It's because of the vision of Justin Marks. Pitbull, Armando (Perez, co-owner), we won, yeah.”

Overall, it was a solid day for Chevrolet with six drivers in the top 10. Elliott extended his points lead by 21 over Ryan Blaney, who finished 11th.