By David Morgan, Associate Editor
CONCORD, N.C. – Ross Chastain never gave up in his quest to make it to the next round of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs in Sunday’s Bank of America ROVAL 400 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Coming into the day, Chastain would need to overcome a 13-point deficit to Joey Logano to be able to claim the final transfer spot into the Round of 8 and as fate would have it that final spot would indeed come down to those two drivers.
At times, Chastain had the advantage, while the advantage went Logano’s way at other points in the race, but it all came down to which team could execute the best.
Chastain ran into issues on pit road on two separate occasions – once in which he missed the turn at the end of pit road after Stage 1 and then a more crucial speeding penalty in the final stage that brought he and Logano into closer confines in the points race.
Logano would hold the advantage over Chastain as the two raced neck and neck with the laps winding down, but a call from Logano’s crew chief Paul Wolfe brought Logano to pit road, setting the stage for Logano to have to go on full offense for the final 11 laps and Chastain to have to play defense and have to hope his tires would last and keep enough cars at bay behind him.
With 10 laps remaining, the points gap between the two was at 10 points, with Logano holding the advantage in a tiebreaker should they finish in a dead heat in the points standings.
As the laps clicked away, the points gap between them also shrunk as Logano continued to gain ground and the buffer of cars between Chastain and Logano dwindled away.
On the final lap, the two were tied for the transfer spot, Chastain mired in a battle with Denny Hamlin and Alex Bowman and Logano watching from a number of car lengths back.
If Chastain could surpass Hamlin before they took the checkered flag, the spot in the Round of 8 would be his, if not, it was Logano’s for the taking.
Chastain charged into the final chicane in a Hail Mary to try and get past Hamlin, but made contact with the driver of the No. 11 Toyota, spinning Hamlin and himself out in the process.
Echoing shades of Talladega Nights, Chastain slammed his car in reverse and tried to get across the line before any other cars passed him, but it was all in vain as Bowman, Logano, and Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. were all able to get their first.
A frantic finish with the final #NASCARPlayoffs berth on the line!! 🤯 pic.twitter.com/c5Or26Drwb
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) October 5, 2025
In the end, Chastain would be credited with a 21st place finish, one spot behind Logano, with four points separating them in the standings.
Chastain was out and Logano was in.
After pulling his car to a stop on pit road, Chastain took his time climbing out, looking at the scoring pylon in defeat, putting the result squarely on his shoulders and taking the blame for the team not being able to move on to the next round.
“Incredibly disappointed with myself,” said Chastain. “Like, head under the ground. I completely disgraced Trackhouse, Chevy, and it’s like sinking in more and more that I single-handedly took us out.
“First, the adrenaline was still going, but as I stand here and it comes down, I can feel the emotion just radiating through me. And yeah, I want to put my head underneath the landfill out back.”
Justin Marks, who owns the Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet that Chastain drives, came over and put his arm around his driver and offered him a few words of encouragement, but Chastain explained that he didn’t feel worthy of those words, again shouldering the blame for not advancing.
“He put his arm around me and said thank you,” Chastain said. “And I just asked him, don’t thank me. I don’t feel…I’m not very thanked right now. I don’t feel…like they should be really mad at me…”
Marks commented later that the No. 1 team not being able to advance was a byproduct of them not being able to execute and would be something they would have to improve going forward.
“At the end of the day, you know, it was a bit self-inflicted on the 1 team,” said Marks. “We shouldn’t have been in the position that we were in having to fight for one point on the last lap and having to throw Hail Marys and all that kind of stuff.”
“We need to be better on pit road. We need to eliminate the mistakes that were made today so we weren’t in that position.”
23XI Racing Teammates Reddick and Wallace, Cindric Join Chastain in Elimination
Along with Chastain, the other three drivers that started the day on the outside looking in, Tyler Reddick, Bubba Wallace, and Austin Cindric, were also eliminated from the Playoffs.
Reddick would lead the opening three laps from the pole and posted the Xfinity Fastest Lap, but a 10th place finish on the day was not enough to overcome the points deficit he started the day with.
“I don’t know if anything necessarily went wrong today for how the race was playing out,” said Reddick.
“We wanted to prioritize setting up to win the race. I think you could pick it apart – a couple restarts and what not, just kind of, as the race unfolded our long run was not where it needed to be with the top guys. Stage three there, we didn’t make the progress that we needed too, so we kind of went long there hoping for a caution there, and lost a lot of spots, but at the end of the day, we were trying to set ourselves up for a caution late.
“Looking back on it, my crew chief, Billy Scott, said we were only out by 14 – maybe we could have chased point a little bit harder there, so a few things to look back on, but coming into this, we played it the way we should have.”
His 23XI Racing teammate Wallace finished in 15th place, explaining that his team was thrown for a loop by the tire that was used on the Charlotte ROVAL, noting that their Playoff race truly came unraveled last weekend at Kansas.
“Just was thrown for a loop with this tire, and it is funny to look at myself and Denny (Hamlin) and a couple others at the short tracks, when tires degrade, we are pretty good at being able to save tire. Him and I both suck on road courses and we can’t save tires on road courses,” said Wallace.
“It is just frustrating. It is back to how I was a couple of years ago. Frustrated at self, just knowing what was on the line, and didn’t produce, but it wasn’t for a lack of effort.
“I appreciate everyone on this Leidos Toyota team for pushing hard. This one sucks worse than last week for sure. I had high hopes coming in here, and it is what it is.”
And then there was Cindric, who needed to win Sunday at Charlotte to be able to move on, but his day went from bad to worse when he would eventually sustain damage in a crash with Carson Hocevar that sent him behind the wall for repairs.
He would finish in 37th place, 22 laps down.
“I’m bummed out, it definitely wasn’t the day we needed, and it wasn’t even really close,” said Cindric. “I just found myself involved in a lot of stuff, and we got spun out a few times and racked up a lot of damage. So, you’re not going to win when that happens.”
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