LEBANON, Tenn: Ross Chastain did everything he could to put himself in position to win his first career NASCAR Cup Series race on Sunday at Nashville (Tenn.) Superspeedway.
Unfortunately, the Chip Ganassi Racing driver came up one position short – 4.335 seconds short to be exact behind the dominate Kyle Larson.
Still, Chastain’s second-place finish was a career-best in 96 Cup starts and continues to turn around his 2021 season with his third top-10 in the last four races.
Knowing the 300-lap Ally 400 race likely could turn into a fuel mileage race, crew chief Phil Surgen brought the Alva, Fla. native to pit road for tires and fuel – hoping the race would stretch into a long-green flag run and put the No. 42 Clover Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE in the catbird seat.
Restarting mid-pack, Chastain methodically worked his way forward over the final 68-lap stretch to the checkered flag.
Over the final 30 laps of the race, Chastain roared from outside the top-five to take second from William Byron with six laps to go.
His attempt to reel in Larson and swipe a third consecutive Cup Series victory from Larson would be unsuccessful as the laps ran out and Chastain settled for his second top-five run of the season.
“Ah-hah second!,” said Chastain. “Up and down day for sure. I sped on pit road, blocked us in our pit box but the Clover Chevy was fast. Phil Surgen and this group made the right call at the end. I questioned them. I’m sorry. I can’t apologize enough for questioning my team. We drove back up there and had plenty of fuel and had the tires to drive up to second.”
Despite the setbacks Chastain overcame – he believed he had a top-five car early in the race.
“I felt like we had a top-five car all day,” he continued. “This group is building, we are getting speed in these race cars where I can drive ‘em. We even had speed when I was hanging on and then once we got the rears settled down in the track – it really got where I could drive it. It was really good.”
Even with his strong performance Sunday afternoon, Chastain remains locked 20th in the championship standings and 50 points behind a Playoff position currently held by Chris Buescher with nine races remaining in the regular season.
Chastain heads to Pocono (Pa.) Raceway for next weekend’s doubleheader – a venue where he has a personal track best of 24th in four career Cup starts at the 2.5-mile triangle – all in underfunded equipment.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
