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A Hail Melon At Darlington Raceway Will Catapult Ross Chastain Into Playoffs

by Hunter Thomas August 28, 2024 0 comments

DARLINGTON, S.C. – Ross Chastain enters the 75^th running of the Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway on the outside looking in to the cutoff line for the NASCAR Playoffs. A win would guarantee a Playoff berth, and a strong finish would potentially catapult Chastain forward, but it would all come down to the math.

Chastain currently sits 18^th in the standings, only 27 points behind Chris Buescher who holds the 16^th and final transfer spot. The Trackhouse Racing driver isn’t having a bad season. In fact, his average finish is 14.8, and he has finished inside of the top-10 in 32% of the races thus far, but with Harrison Burton winning this past weekend at Daytona, the cutline became that much further away.

“We need to gather a lot of points Sunday night and win,” Chastain said. “The math is the math. If we have a fast car that will obviously increase our chances. I love Darlington so I can’t think of a better place to be going this weekend. We’ll all know Sunday night if I’m in the playoffs or not. No matter what though, we’re going to keep working hard and going for wins the rest of the season.”

Although Chastain is on his backfoot, there really couldn’t be a better track for Chastain than Darlington. He won the spring NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at the South Carolina track, but he has yet to tame the Lady in Black in the NASCAR Cup Series; however, he has come very close on several occasions.

“Darlington is at the top of my list of all of the tracks we race at,” Chastain said. “I love driving down to Darlington. I like racing at the track in any series there. Obviously got the win in the truck there earlier this year. That was a huge deal for me personally because I love Darlington so much.”

Chastain’s best finish at Darlington came back in the 2021 Southern 500 when he crossed the line in third. He finished fifth in last year’s Cook Out Southern 500 and earlier this year, Chastain finished 11^th on Mother’s Day weekend. In recent years, Chastain has consistently been a top competitor at Darlington, but in the two races (2022 & 2023 spring events) where he has led, he crashed out.

On Sunday in Darlington, there’s a high chance Chastain will be going head-to-head for position with other drivers trying to accomplish the same goal, like Bubba Wallace (-21) who has earned four consecutive top-10 finishes at Darlington and 2008 Southern 500 winner, Kyle Busch who has to win to advance. Not to mention Buscher who nearly won the Goodyear 400 in the spring. For years, Darlington has been the opening race of the Playoffs, but the action will intensify on Sunday as it serves as the final race of the Regular Season.

The Cook Out Southern 500 at Darlington will broadcast live on USA at 6 p.m. ET on Sunday, Sept. 1.

Photo Credit: Hunter Thomas/TheFourthTurn.com