There was an internal battle raging inside Ross Chastain as he clawed his way into NASCAR’s championship finale.
He is an eighth-generation watermelon farmer from Florida who was never supposed to make it to the top level of stock car racing, but he did, and it required him to bump and bang his way through traffic from journeyman driver to a top NASCAR Cup Series team with race-winning vehicles on Sunday.
Chastain built a solid list of rivals critical of his aggressive style along the way, and as it became clear he might actually have a chance to race for the Cup title, he started to wonder if his rivals were right about him.
Photo: AFP
Was he making too many mistakes? Trying too hard? Did he need a different approach?
It does not matter now.
With a spot in NASCAR’s championship finale in sight if Chastain could somehow pull off a miracle, he went video game-style and used a wall-hugging ride he had tried as a kid while playing NASCAR 2005 on his Nintendo GameCube.
Photo: AFP
Two points shy of Denny Hamlin for the final transfer spot to next week’s race, Chastain found himself too far behind to make up the ground, so shifted his Chevrolet into fifth gear on the backstretch, deliberately smacked the Martinsville Speedway wall, then took his hands off the wheel.
Chastain let the wall guide the No. 1 the final 400m around the Virginia short track with his foot flat on the gas. He went from 10th to fifth as the breathtaking move shot his Chevy around the other vehicles and into the final four.
“This is the best thing of 2022 in motor racing!” two-time Formula One champion Fernando Alonso wrote on Twitter on Monday. “We all did this on video games with damage disable. Never thought this could become reality.”
Chastain said that he had been beaten by the move on the video game by his brother at “Dodge Raceway somewhere in a fake city, somewhere in Florida,” but he had never actually tried it in real life.
He said repeatedly that it did not even cross his mind to ride the wall until his season was a half-lap away from ending.
“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,” Chastain said. “It flashed back in my head on the white flag.”
Chastain is now being celebrated in all circles of motorsports.
It was the fastest lap a stock car has ever run at Martinsville, which is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year. The track record was 18.954 seconds. Chastain’s final lap was 18.845 seconds and he was hurtling 80kph to 112kph faster than the vehicles he was sailing past as the wall guided him.
NASCAR said Chastain’s move was legal, but his competitors are not sure it should stay that way.
Hamlin crew chief Chris Gabehart said that “the tracks aren’t built with this in mind from a safety perspective. Someone could get hurt.... OUTSIDE the track.”
Driver Kevin Harvick said that Chastain would not have been successful if not for NASCAR’s new, durable next-gen car.
He also predicted NASCAR potentially outlawing such moves.
“My guess is that will be the only time you see this. But making a rule is always a feather in the cap!” Harvick wrote on Twitter.
Badminton world No. 3 Anders Antonsen clinched his first Indonesia Open title yesterday after beating Taiwan’s Chou Tien-chen, while South Korea’s An Se-young won her second championship in Jakarta. The 28-year-old Dane sank world No. 7 Chou at the Indonesian capital’s Istora Senayan arena, winning 22-20, 21-14 in a 60-minute match to secure the prestigious Super 1000 event. Antonsen came out on top in a tightly contested first game before cruising to victory in the second. In a more closely fought women’s singles final, South Korean ace and world No. 1 An fought back from one game down to beat China’s
Spain starlets Lamine Yamal and Nico Williams dazzled on Thursday as La Roja beat France 5-4 in a thriller in Stuttgart, Germany, to set up a UEFA Nations League final with Portugal. Yamal bagged a brace, while Williams scored and provided an assist as the two wingers cut France’s makeshift defense to ribbons. Mikel Merino and Pedri were also on the score sheet for the UEFA Euro 2024 champions. Kylian Mbappe netted a second-half penalty, but Spain were 5-1 up and cruising, before Les Bleus suddenly woke up as their opponents took their foot off the pedal. France’s three late goals — a
Italy crashed to a 3-0 loss away to Norway, as the four-time FIFA World Cup champions made a disastrous start to their 2026 World Cup qualifying campaign on Friday, while Belgium had to settle for a draw in North Macedonia. Alexander Sorloth, Antonio Nusa and Erling Haaland all scored in the first half in pouring rain in Oslo as Norway made it a night to forget for Italy, who missed out on the past two World Cups. “I have no explanation. Our supporters don’t deserve this kind of match. We need to do some soul-searching. It’s unacceptable,” Italy captain and goalkeeper Gianluigi
The Crusaders yesterday produced a clinical performance in difficult conditions to beat the Queensland Reds 32-12 and claim home advantage in next week’s Super Rugby semi-finals. Lock Scott Barrett and prop Tamaiti Williams scored first-half tries to reward an outstanding performance from the Crusaders’ forwards in wet, slippery conditions and bitterly cold temperatures. Scrumhalf Noah Hotham defied the conditions in the second half to score a superb solo try and, after kicking a conversion and penalty to make the score 22-0 at the hour mark, flyhalf Rivez Reihana scored a try which took the game beyond the Reds. “Typical Christchurch weather, cold, wet
RSS