Throughout the Charlotte Roval race on Sunday, Playoff drivers Ross Chastain and defending NASCAR Series Champion Joey Logano had a points slugfest to see who claimed the final Round of 8 position.
When the checkered flag waved, it was the No. 22 Ford of Lagano beating out Chastain and the No. 1 Chevrolet by four points to move on. They traded the in/out eligibility through the first two stages and into the final segment with margins of +/- one point to eight, at times.
Late Pit Road Penalty Costly for Chastain
With 21 laps remaining, Chastain came to pit road for a green flag stop. The tire changes, fuel and adjustments went great. However, as the driver exited his stall, Chastain put his car in the wrong gear and was penalized for Exiting Too Fast.
As a result, the No. 1 Chevrolet team was assessed a Pass Through Penalty forcing them to pit road and serve the penalty. “I put it in the wrong gear,” Chastain quietly radioed to his crew.
When he returned, the goal was to make up four positions to race his way past Logano and into the Round of 8. While on older tires, cars with fresher tires went buy closing the gap and shrinking his point lead over Logano on fresher tires.
On the final lap, with a two-point advantage, Denny Hamlin passed Chastain putting he and Logano even, who had the tie breaker to his advantage. With Chastain trailing Hamlin into the final turn, the No. 1 car did a dive bomb into the No. 11 spinning them both out just shy of the finish line.
Facing backwards, Chastain put the car in reverse and headed for the checkered flags, as Logano when by him and into the Round of 8. Chastain said there was nobody to blame but himself for the Roval failure.
“This team expects so much more out of me,” a dejected Chastain said. “To speed on pit road, I came out of the pit stall and double clicked up into third. Those are just unforced errors and it’s terrible.
“It’s heartbreaking for the 200 employees of Trackhouse, everybody that makes this go round. Justin (Marks, owner) hired me to carry this No. 1 car and be a leader and I completely unraveled our day, completely unacceptable.
“Nobody had a hand into what happened today but me. It’s terrible to get to this level and not perform.”
Logano Trusted Crew Chief for Success
Coming into the Roval race, Logano and team were 14 points to the good. As the laps ticketed down, they were up by two markers when crew chief Paul Wolfe called his driver to pit road for the final set of tires and fuel.
When he returned to action, Logano was five points behind as Chastain and team elected to stay out and finish the race. The defending NCS champion was in total agreement with his team leader regarding pit decisions.
âI trust Paul Wolfe,” Logano said. “When you realize youâre going to get beat, youâve got to go do something and we were kind of tanking there pretty hard. We were going to be in trouble.
âHe’s going to make those calls, he’s going to man up and do it and thereâs no one better than Paul to do it. If you donât think regular season races matter, look at that.
“Weâre still alive, baby. Now weâve got to win, weâve got to win from here.â
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