NASCAR drivers angered, baffled by Chastain’s last-lap ‘video game’ move at Martinsville
Christopher Bell notched a walk-off win when he needed to for the second time in these 2022 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs — a feat that is remarkable by any standard and one that has launched the 27-year-old driver onto the sport’s biggest stage.
And yet his win was not the most memorable moment from Sunday’s Cup race.
The most memorable moment, instead, was orchestrated by Ross Chastain.
On the final lap at Martinsville Speedway, with one turn to go, Chastain made a move that will end up in NASCAR lore. The No. 1 car needed to pass a few cars to get closer to Denny Hamlin to advance on points into the Championship 4, so the TrackHouse Racing driver decided to go as big as he could: He drove into the wall, let go of the steering wheel, shifted into fifth gear and pressed the throttle to the ground — using up all his car’s power in hopes that the wall would turn him toward glory.
And it worked.
He finished fifth and edged out Hamlin by less than a car length to move on to the Championship 4 at Phoenix Raceway next weekend.
“I think the first time I ever saw a race car do that was on a video game, the GameCube 2005 console,” Chastain told reporters in his press conference on Sunday, wearing a big smile as if he’d just taken a trip down Victory Lane. “I don’t know if anybody else in the world had those. My brother Chad beat me doing it ... I think it was Dodge Raceway somewhere in a fake city, somewhere in Florida.
“I never thought about it. In our prep this week, it never crossed my mind. I’ve done a lot of sim work this week, a lot of iRacing, a lot of stuff, laps here virtually. Never once did it cross my mind or ever try it. I want to make that clear. The last time would have been a long time ago before I was even thinking about being a NASCAR driver.”
The move was the talk of the media center — and of the sport at-large — after the race. Some drivers were bewildered by it. Others were angered by it.
Hamlin, the driver who was knocked out of the Championship 4 chase because of the unprecedented move, was almost at a loss for words.
“It was well-executed but certainly ...” Hamlin said, his voice trailing off. He added, “These are the rules we play with. You gotta race inside these walls, and he found a way to do it better than us on the last lap.”
When asked about how he felt about getting knocked out of the Championship 4 contention — after having made the Championship 4 in the past three years — Hamlin offered another level-headed response: “I absolutely hate the result, but I loved our performance today.”
Championship drivers weigh in
Kyle Larson was among the more outspoken about his dislike of Chastain’s move down the stretch. He called it “not a good look” for the sport.
The move felt a bit reminiscent of an up-the-wall attempt Larson made last year, when he was running second and trying to catch Hamlin on the final lap of the 2021 Southern 500 at Darlington. (Hamlin was able to fend Larson off in that 2021 race, though.)
When asked if he perhaps inspired Chastain’s move, Larson shrugged: “I’m embarrassed if I did because that was pretty embarrassing, honestly. That’s not a good look for our sport. I don’t know what you guys think. You probably think it’s cool. But I think it’s pretty embarrassing.”
Some drivers were still clearly trying to wrap their heads around what happened when asked about it post-race.
“We could’ve all done it, so I guess it’s fair in that sense,” Chase Briscoe said on pit road post-race. The No. 14 car was one of the handful of cars Chastain passed on that late-race move. “It’s not like he’s the only guy who was able to do it. I mean, I wish that I would’ve done it now, obviously, looking back on it. But I mean, it’s tough.
“It’s like a 50-50 deal, right? Because any of us could’ve done it, but is it fair to the seven guys he passed? Probably not. But all seven of us could’ve done the same thing. So like I said, I’m very curious to see how much this changes the complexion of these short-track races.”
Said Blaney, who finished third and needed a win to make the Championship 4: “I don’t think it makes us look very good. Just makes us look like, I don’t know ... I don’t know, I mean, what keeps anybody from doing that from now on, anywhere? If you could make up two seconds, I guess everyone is just gonna start doing that, so I don’t think it’s a very good look for the sport. I mean, he did it. It got him into the Championship 4, it’s good for him. But I don’t think that needs to be a recurring thing.”
Should NASCAR regulate this move in the future?
Joey Logano, whose win at Las Vegas a few weeks ago locked in his Championship 4 slot before Martinsville’s mayhem, said that NASCAR might need to make a rule thanks to Chastain’s video-game-inspired move.
“I mean, I think it’s pretty easy: You can’t hit the wall and gain a position,” Logano said when asked how he thinks NASCAR should regulate the move going forward. “I think that’s a pretty simple way of looking at it. It’s kind of a dumbed-down version. If you hit the wall and you gain a spot, you should be at the tail end of the field.”
Chastain said he was open to having discussions and sharing his side of the story if NASCAR considered instituting a “Chastain rule” to prevent this wall-riding from happening again.
“The scenario for it to be worth it to work like that — I mean, the car is destroyed,” Chastain said. “Upper control arm I think is broken on the right front. I had no brakes coming across the finish line. That’s not something that everybody’s going to just go do now. But I don’t know. I don’t know what they should do. I’m sure that I will talk to them this week. I’m sure that we will have lots of conversations about it. I will give my point of view and my opinion. But I’ll let them decide, right?
“They know me well and they know these scenarios well enough now that we’ve got a good working relationship with race control and everybody at NASCAR. I’m ready to talk and ready to help push it forward if we need to.”
Still, Logano couldn’t deny that the finish was thrilling: It was one of those “I was here when ...” kind of moments — a once-a-year, once-a-generation move that made racing fans not believe their eyes.
“I mean, hey, the first time it happens, that’s pretty awesome,” Logano said, chuckling a bit. “I mean, if that doesn’t make SportsCenter’s Top 10 plays, I don’t know what does. Race into a championship, that’s crazy.”
Chastain adds to polarizing legacy
Being a polarizing driver isn’t new to Chastain.
The driver made a lot of enemies this summer. He made so many enemies (and so many enemies who were veterans and heavyweights in the sport), in fact, that drivers and pundits and fans figured that there was no way that he would advance in the playoffs: Drivers, after all, wouldn’t let him — they’d deal Chastain some of his own rambunctious-racing-medicine at the costliest of times, they said.
And yet here he is.
Larson said that Chastain’s run might end next weekend in Phoenix.
“I don’t believe that was a good look,” Larson reiterated, adding, “I feel like he stole that from somebody more deserving. I think it kicked out the 11, so I’d be surprised if Ross made it very far in the race anyway on Sunday (in Phoenix).”
Chastain said he recognizes that this race might be remembered for his final lap. But he also spent time post-race acknowledging the magical story of TrackHouse Racing — only in its second season in the Cup Series — that is still being written.
“The last lap, the last corner, I know that will be the focus,” Chastain said. “I hope this takes NASCAR to the No. 1 moment on SportsCenter, right? If we’re going to do it, let’s go all the way.
“But let’s not forget the path of TrackHouse to get here, how unorthodox we are. He we took a building and an A team, and then we brought in another team to build this team as a family. We’ve got more buy-in on the shop floor than I’ve ever witnessed in a race team. I’m so proud to get to do it with this group.”
Chastain said that every member of his team will give scraps of the now torn-up car to all members of his team as “a little token to remember this night.”
“But it’s bigger than the last lap,” Chastain continued. “Just remember the fact that we are putting ourselves in position to have a shot at a championship. That’s all we ask for.”
This story was originally published October 30, 2022 at 9:25 PM.
