Chastain, team get first win
Allmendinger angry after being spun by winner with “dive-bomb” pass in OT
Ross Chastain bumped and banged his way around the final overtime lap at Circuit of the Americas on Sunday for his first career Cup win and upstart NASCAR team Trackhouse Racing ’s first trip to victory lane.
Trackhouse is owned by former NASCAR driver Justin Marks and entertainer Pitbull and is in its second season of competition. Chastain, an eighth-generation watermelon farmer from Florida, was kept on by Marks for Trackhouse when Marks bought out Chip Ganassi’s entire NASCAR team ahead of this season.
Chastain celebrated by spiking a large watermelon off the top of his Chevrolet.
“It’s never tasted sweeter, I tell ya,” the 29-year-old said with a piece of rind stuck in his beard. He then took another huge bite.
The two-lap sprint produced the most aggressive action of a long Sunday of racing on the permanent road course used primarily for Formula One. The race had nine cautions and ran 3 hours, 20 minutes.
Chastain wasn’t even the leader — Tyler Reddick had somehow moved to the front in the previous single lap run between the eighth and ninth cautions — and Chastain also had to contend with former teammate and mentor AJ Allmendinger.
Chastain and Allmendinger restarted second and third, while sitting back in fourth was Alex Bowman. He’s been chided for “backing into victories, and for a moment, it looked as if another would indeed fall in his lap.
Chastain used an aggressive move to get past Reddick to the lead, and Allmendinger followed. Bowman also jumped past Reddick and closed the gap on Chastain and Allmendinger as the two friends jostled and bashed for the lead.
The overtime featured four lead changes — Chastain and Allmendinger swapped it twice, and Bowman even got to the front — but Chastain decided the race by divebombing inside of Allmendinger. That spun Allmendinger into Bowman and Allmendinger went from second to 33rd.
“I was so worried about AJ on that
second-to-last restart that I let Tyler drive right by both of us,” Chastain said. “AJ is so good, I’ve learned so much from him, and it’s like ‘How do you beat the guy? He taught me so much!’”
He wasn’t thrilled to have won the race, his first in 121 career Cup starts, with the dive-bomb on Allmendinger.
“I feel bad about AJ,” Chastain said. “I mean, he’s gonna be upset with me but we raced hard and he owes me one.”
Allmendinger was openly annoyed after a mandatory trip to the care center.
“At the end of the day, we all have to look ourselves in the mirror. If you are OK with it, you’re OK with it. Each person is different,” he said of how Chastain raced him.
Bowman finished second.