Chastain Crashes the Playoffs

Hollywood Casino 400 Presented by ESPN Bet: Ross Chastain crashed the playoff party once again by taking the win in Sunday's Hollywood Casino 400 Presented by ESPN Bet at Kansas Speedway. The win was Chastain's first of the 2024 campaign, and although it came too late to advance his playoff and championship hopes, it was still celebrated hard by the driver of the #1 Chevy for Trackhouse Racing. And Chastain got the party started on the front stretch immediately following the race with his signature watermelon smash move in front of the cheering crowd.

The win did not come easy for Chastain. He had speed all day but had to battle several strong contenders throughout the 400 mile battle at the 1.5 mile track in Kansas City. Moreover, Chastain did not emerge as a serious contender for the win until Stage 3. And throughout Stage 3 he had to, primarily fend off Kyle Busch. Busch, who was arguably having the best race of his season, appeared to have set sail to the win with 40-ish laps left. It was then, however, that he caught a difficult to pass Chase Briscoe and Briscoe doing what he had to do put enough dirty air on the #8 car that it caused Busch to lose control, bounce off the wall and spin to the infield and effectively ended his day. Busch did rebound to a 19th place finish, but it absolutely was one of those woulda, coulda, shoulda days. I know that much will be made about Briscoe, and I know why he did what he did and I don't blame him for it. However, I do kind of miss the days when lapped cars that late in the race just laid over and let the leaders battle it out for the win. I mean, Briscoe was so slow a damaged Kyle Busch was able to still beat him at the end of the day. And I feel like it robbed us of what was going to be an epic Busch v. Chastain showdown for the top spot. But alas, those are not the days we live in anymore and Briscoe was doing what he had to do with out blatantly fencing the #8 car.

After the Busch spin we had the final round of most of the field pitstops. Yet, a few drivers rolled the dice on strategy to spice things up (it did not work) and it was back to Chastain v. MTJ for the lead as soon as they cleared turn 2. Another quick caution bunched up the field and threw Byron back into contention. But nonetheless the Kubota Tractor Chevy Camaro and the Melon Man were too much and too fast for Willy B to capitalize on a late race charge and Chastain cruised into victory lane Sunday afternoon.

I, unfortunately, missed the first half of the race and had to follow on my phone via the NASCAR app and Twitter (X, whatever). I was able to catch the back half on radio and caught up once I got home on YouTube and a quick re-watch of the race. It was not as electric as previous Kansas races have been, but I felt that Kansas delivered good racing yet again, and it was a much needed palate cleanser after the atrocious race last weekend at Bristol. I have to give NASCAR credit that the NextGen car does work at multi-groove 1.5+ mile tracks. I just hope whatever changes are inevitable in the off season don't denigrate the one good style of racing that the Cup Series currently has with this new car. And here's to hoping Talladega isn't a snooze fest until under 20 to go this weekend.

And we are off to Alabama this weekend for action with all three national touring series yet again at Talladega Superspeedway! The Craftsman Truck Series kicks off the weekend on Friday afternoon at 4:30 p.m. EST on FS1 with the Love's RV Stop 250. The Xfinity Series leads the action on Saturday afternoon at 4 p.m. EST with the United Rentals 250 on The CW. And the Cup Series caps off the weekend Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m. EST on NBC with the YellaWood 500!

Talladega Picks:

Truck = Ty Dillon Xfinity = Austin Hill

Cup = Bubba Wallace

Header Photo: Motorsport Images