Ross Chastain ran an excellent race at Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday, but it was all undone by his controversial overtime finish at the Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 400.
Chastain actually won the second stage of the race and was very much in the mix to take the checkered flag when a caution forced the race into overtime. Chastain was second behind Chase Elliott in the final lap of OT, but wound up getting spun out by William Byron after going high to try to block Byron’s path.
For Chastain, the consequences were downright brutal. He was running second and likely to finish no worse than third before the crash, but as a result of the incident, he wound up not finishing at all and dropping down to 32nd place.
Byron defended his move after the race, saying he was always going to try to make a move on the final lap and that he had simply beaten Chastain to his spot.
Chastain, for his part, declined to speak to the media and was presumably not pleased with how things finished.
Chastain is known as an aggressive driver and this is not the first time this year something like this has happened to him. One could certainly argue that the 32nd-place finish is not terribly fair considering where he was at the end of the regulation portion of the race.
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