Ross Chastain Holds His Line, Wins Talladega

Generally, Talladega races go one of two ways: Either a seemingly endless series of multi-car wrecks slows the race down to a series of ugly overtime restarts or the final two stints go green, setting up an all-out dash in the final laps between drivers who have spent the last hundred laps positioning themselves for that exact moment. Today, NASCAR fans were lucky enough to get the latter.

The nature of this racing makes the first two stages largely irrelevant. Bubba Wallace won the first and William Byron won the second, but the race for positioning began after the final guaranteed caution at the end of stage 2. Over the following stint, drivers tried to jockey for track position in a relatively straightforward single-file battle with space on the outside for drivers to make runs together. That’s how Ryan Blaney and Bubba Wallace pushed to the lead together, leading both to lead for stretches before separating just before the final green flag stop of the race. Here, both of their crews struggled and drove their drivers out of contention; Wallace made one final push later in the race, but Blaney’s contributions were limited to helping the outside lane jump back into the fight with about five laps to go.

That left a massive opportunity for GM, whose fleet of Chevrolets from many teams dominated the top five after the final stop. Erik Jones and Kyle Larson dueled for the lead throughout the finishing stretch, with Jones ultimately pushing into the lead late with help from Larson’s teammates William Byron and Chase Elliott. Jones led Larson and Ross Chastain on the inside with one lap to go, and had Larson close enough behind him that he had no real chance to make a move without help on the back straightaway. That’s when the No. 1 of Chastain lost a little ground fighting the group on the outside, opening up space for Larson to fall back and make a move on Jones in the trioval before the start/finish line. This being Talladega, that created a massive wreck:

Global Tech News Daily

WHAT A FINISH. RETWEET TO CONGRATULATE @RossChastain ON HIS WIN AT TALLADEGA! pic.twitter.com/Wz4onpm5es

— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) April 24, 2022

Jones goes to block at the same moment Chastain gets the Larson off-center on a hard push. It left all three with nowhere to go, opening the door for Chastain to simply hold his position and take the win. At the same moment, lane-leading moves with momentum for both Bubba Wallace (knocked sideways while aggressively blocking the far outside lane) and Kurt Busch (swept out of the way by Larson’s bump-assisted move on the blocking Jones) ended with both 23XI racing teammates crashing hard. Wallace, the winner of the last race at Talladega, was in visible pain as he got out of the car.

Verstappen edges Leclerc in Imola sprint

See more videos

What to watch next

• 
  Chastain: ‘So special’ to win Talladega in COTA race-winning car Ross Chastain reacts to winning Talladega in the same car he took to Circuit of The Americas and won with four weeks ago.
• 
  Race Rewind: Last-lap drama decides Talladega Relive the 2022 GEICO 500 that saw Ross Chastain put himself in the right place at the right time winning the race at Talladega.
• 
  Erik Jones: ‘I wish I would have stayed on the bottom’ Listen in as Erik Jones reacts to the final lap where he went from first to sixth in the last turn of the NASCAR Cup Series race at Talladega.

UP NEXT

The win is Chastain’s second of both the season and his career, tying him with William Byron for the most this season. Although both his wins came at unorthodox tracks, they combine with strong runs at every other type of track on the schedule to make Chastain and Trackhouse Racing surprise early contenders for the 2022 championship. Although the team started last season, its major expansion after the purchase of Chip Ganassi Racing this season makes it one of four young teams expanding to two cars for the first time ever this season.

NASCAR’s one off weekend all season is still over a month and a half away, so teams race again at Dover next weekend. That race will be held on Sunday afternoon.

Looking to purchase a car? Find your match on the MSN Autos Marketplace