Ross Chastain will head to Charlotte Motor Speedway’s ROVAL in a precarious position, as far as advancing to the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs ‘Round of 8’ after sustaining major damage in a four-car incident at Talladega Superspeedway.
The incident, which happened on the final lap of the race’s first stage, began when 2023 Daytona 500 winner Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. ran out of gas on the backstretch, causing his No. 47 Chevrolet Camaro to stumble.
#NASCARPlayoffs driver @RossChastain is out early in Sunday’s #YellaWood500 at @TALLADEGA, as a result of this four-car accident on the final lap of the first stage.#NASCAR
— Joseph Srigley (@joe_srigley) October 1, 2023
That quick stumble in the middle of the backstretch, caused a chain reaction behind him as Kyle Busch was pushing into the rear bumper of the JTG Daugherty Racing driver, sending both up towards the outside wall.
Chastain, driving the No. 1 Chevrolet Camaro, had just moved into the third lane down the backstretch, only to have to shoot a gap between the middle lane and the cars up towards the outside wall, which resulted in contact with Kyle Busch.
The Alva, Florida native then went spinning towards the outside wall, where oncoming traffic had nowhere to go, seeing fellow NASCAR Playoff contender Christopher Bell in the No. 20 Toyota Camry TRD make contact with Chastain.
Chastain would be forced to retire early from Sunday’s YellaWood 500 with significant damage to his Worldwide Express Chevrolet, while Bell, Busch, and Stenhouse all were able to continue with minimal damage, if any at all.
“It’s just the way it goes, nothing personal with it. I don’t take any of this personally here,” said Chastain. “Could have stayed on the bottom a few laps earlier probably and been safer, but just kinda had a couple of cars laying in my lap there, and I went for the gap and obviously I wish I would have just lifted.”
Chastain will be credited with a 38th-place finish, leaving him in a dire situation heading to the Charlotte ROVAL in one week’s time.
Ross Chastain discusses the crash that put an early end to his day today. #NASCAR pic.twitter.com/3x1jeGEcJ5
— Toby Christie (@Toby_Christie) October 1, 2023
[…] video of the accident can be found on TobyChristie.com, showing the four-car crash that ended stage one of the […]