Why Ross Chastain had to purposely give up a top ten finish at Darlington

After collecting 12 stage points and running somewhere between second and seventh for most of the race, Ross Chastain abruptly fell back near the end of the 500-miler at Darlington.

It was a difficult situation for the driver of the No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet, as he fell from seventh to 11th in the final ten laps of the race. However, it was a necessary sacrifice. 

The team informed Chastain that there was a fueling issue during his final stop, and that he was going to need to save them around two laps of gas throughout the final run of the race. And with no cautions, he had to back down his pace, willingly letting the competition pass him by as he did everything he could to make it to the finish line.

Chastain ‘avoids disaster’

The team was telling Chastain to back off the throttle by ‘50%’ near the end, and Chastain was actually cutting the engine on entry to the corners. As he saw a top ten slipping away, he actually asked the team if he could race for tenth in the final two laps, but they advised against it.

While it was surely painful, the result means he gets to leave Darlington 21 points above the cutline. As a driver who entered the race with just one point between himself and the elimination zone, that is a huge gain.

“We’re going to get out of here with no fuel in the gas tank,” he said when answering a question from Motorsport.com. “Not sure how much is left, but they were not confident — even with being at 50% throttle — we were even gonna make it. Definitely glad we rolled across the line in 11th. Although ninth was right there in front of us, I couldn’t push the gas and risk running out. Definitely, we avoided disaster and we’ve learned in these early rounds, doing that is key.”

This is Chastain’s third appearance in the NASCAR Cup Playoffs in the last four years, so he’s no stranger to this kind of points racing. He ended 2022 as the championship runner-up, but was eliminated in the Round of 12 during the 2023 season.