Kyle Petty didn’t love the fact that Ross Chastain spun Tyler Reddick after The Clash at the Coliseum came to an end on Saturday.
After the checkered flag had waved to finish the race, Chastain evidently felt he had unfinished business with Reddick. The Melon Man had grown frustrated after the final lap, so he put his NASCAR competitor into the wall, roughing up the No. 45 Toyota.
While Chastain has a reputation of being an aggressive driver, that’s far from the way he acted at the end of the 2023 season. Nevertheless, Petty wasn’t a fan of Chastain’s antics, believing he should’ve simply moved on to Daytona after Los Angeles.
“I’ll move on to Ross Chastain and Tyler Reddick. These two guys get into each other on the last lap of the race, and when the checkered flag falls and the yellow lights are on, we see a little retaliation from Ross Chastain. Have we seen that before? Yes we have, yes we have. The season is starting just like last season,” Petty delineated, via NASCAR.com. “That was uncalled for. Because again, this means nothing. Just money in the bank and a trophy, and you lost out on both, so go on to the next place.”
Alas, perhaps Chastain would’ve been better suited saving his retaliation for Daytona or a different track, but there’s also something to be said for doing it when there’s nothing to lose. We’re sure Reddick would rather get put in the wall during The Clash than a point-paying race down the line.
Regardless, perhaps this signals the aggressive-style from Ross Chastain will return in 2024. He’s got a brand new sponsor in Busch Light, so we’ll see if the Trackhouse Racing star can recapture his magic this season.
More on Ross Chastain, Clash at the Coliseum
For the Trackhouse Racing driver, Saturday was a grind. He put himself in position to drive for a top-5 finish at times. However, things just never came together. Contact on the track, issues like Reddick putting him into the car of Bubba Wallace as it was spun out on track.
Chastain went from a potential top-10 finish to P15 because of that move from Reddick at the end. So, you can understand the frustration. We don’t think we can really draw too many conclusions from this race for Chastain, other than he is the same driver he has always been.
That’s a good thing, by the way. We need the aggression and attitude in the Cup Series. Someone who is going to make other drivers nervous when he’s around them on the track. While you hate to see retaliation after the race, you can’t be too upset about what Ross did, really.
Ultimately, Ross Chastain showed the same grit and fight he has always had in the Cup Series. Trackhouse Racing is making strides and growing at an unreal pace – performance on the track matters.
Chastain wants to get more wins sooner rather than later and make a statement to the rest of the garage, but we might see another feud begin between Chastain and Toyota in 2024.
On3’s Jonathan Howard contributed to this article.
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