Chastain Upsets Playoff Field With Stirring Kansas Score

KANSAS CITY, Kan. – Justin Marks brought Trackhouse Racing into the NASCAR Cup Series to “be a disruptor,” and his driver Ross Chastain did just that Sunday at Kansas Speedway.

After taking the lead of the Hollywood Casino 400 presented by ESPN BET for the first time with 91 laps left, Chastain ended up holding off a charging William Byron in the late stages to play spoiler to the Cup Series playoff field for the second time in as many seasons.

The Alva, Fla., native charged to the lead for the final time on a lap-248 restart, overhauling fellow non-playoff driver Martin Truex Jr. entering turn one with a huge dive on the bottom lane of the 1.5-mile oval.

From there, Chastain escaped into clean air and maintained a lead gap of roughly a half-second over Byron all the way to the finish. He led the final 21 laps for his fifth career Cup Series victory.

It was Chastain’s first win since the 2023 season finale at Arizona’s Phoenix Raceway, and his last two trips to victory lane at NASCAR’s top level have come as a postseason spoiler.

“For us on this [No.] 1 team, days like today are what Cup racing is all about,” said Chastain after a near five-minute burnout celebration, followed by his trademark watermelon smash at the start-finish line.

“This is what Justin Marks bought into NASCAR, with [co-owner] Pitbull and Trackhouse, to do … is stuff like this,” he continued. “Look, there’s been times this year where we couldn’t have disrupted the minnow pond outside of Darlington [Raceway in South Carolina], let alone a Cup race. It’s that hard to perform at this level. It’s really tough. So, to come and do this … there were times where I didn’t think, after practice and qualifying, that we had what it took here. I thought we’d been way stronger here in the past and [the car] just didn’t feel great all day.

“But our Kubota Chevy, it kept getting better as the rubber went down and the adjustments were great.”

The strategy call that propelled Chastain toward the front of the field came just before the end of stage two, when Zane Smith led a stream of cars – including Chastain – down pit road in an effort to flip the script and gain track position.

While Alex Bowman, who went on to win stage two, and other playoff drivers stayed on track for points at that juncture, they found themselves buried from 19th on back when the final stage began.

Chastain was sixth at that point, but rapidly worked his way forward. He split the middle between Kyle Busch and Truex to climb to third on lap 173, then stormed past Ty Gibbs for second on lap 176 before rolling past rookie Carson Hocevar to take the top spot a lap-and-a-half later.

Largely dominating from that point forward, Chastain led five times overall for a combined 52 laps – second most only to polesitter Christopher Bell, who ruled the first two thirds of Sunday’s race and was out front for 122 circuits.

The battle through the final cycle of green-flag pit stops was between Chastain and Kyle Busch, who was seeking to end a 50-race winless drought and extend his record streak of consecutive seasons with a Cup Series victory to 20 years running.

Busch and Chastain actually traded the point back and forth three times before their final green-flag stops with 56 to go, but it was the former who cycled out to the lead when all was said and done on pit road at lap 220.

It appeared that Busch might be set to grab the checkered flag at that point, but he tagged the wall and spun off turn two with 32 to go while trying to lap the slower car of playoff contender Chase Briscoe.

That shuffled the Richard Childress Racing No. 8 back out of contention and set Chastain and Truex up to settle the battle for the win among one another after one last round of pit service for fresh tires.

Truex led the first restart with 26 laps left, after Brad Keselowski stayed out in an effort to grab track position, but a quick spin on the backstretch by Hocevar set up one final 20-lap sprint to the finish.

It was that green flag where Chastain powered past Truex on the bottom lane, leaving the competition to scrap for runner-up honors behind him.

“I remember the process I talked about at Nashville last year. We haven’t left. We haven’t gone away,” said Chastain, referencing one of his earlier victories from a season ago. “Nobody has slowed us down other than ourselves, and today we were the fastest car and proved it.”

Byron dispatched Truex for second during the last restart and chased Chastain for the remaining distance, but could never mount enough of a run to challenge and fell .388 seconds short of the win.

“I feel like he got the restart he needed to, and I was in the second row just trying to clear those guys,” tipped Byron. “Once I got clear of them, my balance was okay. I was a little bit tight, but started inching up on him right before the end.

“Damn it, I wanted that one really bad. It just sucks,” he added. “When you’re so close [to victory lane], and you know going to Talladega what [a win would mean], it sucks … but I’m proud of our effort.”

Truex ended up third, still seeking a win in his final full-time season, with Ryan Blaney rallying back to fourth after a loose wheel during the final stage forced him to make his final pit stop several laps early.

Ty Gibbs closed the top five, followed by Bowman, Bell, Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliott, and Zane Smith.

Bell’s dominant day was derailed after he scrubbed the outside wall near the end of both stage one and stage two, scuttling his track position and diminishing the performance of his race car just enough to play a determining factor.

Elliott, meanwhile, came from the back for his top-10 finish after starting last due to an engine change following qualifying.

Kyle Larson and Austin Cindric were the lowest among the 12 playoff contenders, with Larson finishing 26th after having to rally from lap-19 contact with the outside wall. Cindric damaged the nose of his car in a lap-157 spin on the backstretch and ended a lap down in 34th.

Ten cautions slowed the pace for 47 laps, with the winner completing the race in three hours, 14 minutes, and 54 seconds at an average speed of 123.294 mph.

Heading to Talladega (Ala.) Speedway for race two in the Round of 12, Byron leads the playoff standings, while Elliott holds the final advancement spot by four points over regular season champion Tyler Reddick.

Broadcast coverage of the Yellawood 500 at the 2.66-mile oval is slated for Sunday, Oct. 6 at 2 p.m. ET, live on NBC, the Motor Racing Network, and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, channel 90.