Ross Chastain captured his first win of the season, albeit a month later than he wished, but a win nonetheless that played spoiler in the opening race of the NASCAR quarterfinal playoff round.
Chastain failed to make the playoffs as only two winless drivers made NASCAR’s 16-driver championship-eligible field, but he created a good 2024 memory by capturing the Cup race Sunday at Kansas Speedway.
Taking the lead on a restart with 21 laps to go, the Trackhouse Racing driver kept William Byron at bay for his fifth career victory.
Chastain and Kyle Busch had traded the lead over about 20 laps late in the race, but Busch spun and hit the wall with 32 laps remaining.
We haven’t left,” Chastain said. “We haven’t went away. Nobody has slowed us down other than ourselves, and today we were the fastest car.”
Byron settled for second and leads the standings in NASCAR’s “Round of 12” with races at Talladega Superspeedway and the Charlotte road course remaining.
He was one of the few playoff drivers not to have trouble in the event.
Takeaways from Kansas where two drivers eliminated the previous week from championship contention finished third (Martin Truex Jr.) and fifth (Ty Gibbs) while playoff driver Ryan Blaney was fourth.
Busch appeared to be on pace to snap a 50-race winless streak as he was pulling away from Chastain but got loose when trying to squeeze between Chase Briscoe and the wall when trying to put Briscoe a lap down.
Some drivers might have given Busch a little more room — it appeared he had a very tight lane to make the pass.
“I wasn’t going to just pull over and give it to him — we’re still racing for staying on the lead lap,” Briscoe said.
“I felt like we left him a car width and a couple of inches. These cars are so sensitive.
“If you’re off of somebody’s right rear, you get so loose and it looked like that is what happened. He throttled up to pin me so where I couldn’t get up [in front of him]. And as soon as he got there, … it sucked him around.”
Busch knew it was going to be tough to pass Briscoe. He said in past years, drivers might be a little more forgiving.
“I tried to force my hand … to get to his outside, and when I did, for some reason whatever happened, it just gave all the air in all the wrong place and I spun out,” Busch said.
Briscoe is still in the playoffs, a spot he earned when he and Busch had a clean battle in the regular-season finale earlier this month at Darlington where Briscoe won an automatic playoff berth.
Should that have resulted in Briscoe maybe giving Busch more room?
