Ross Chastain escapes last-lap chaos to earn first NASCAR Cup win at Austin

AUSTIN, Texas —  Ross Chastain bumped and banged his way around the final overtime lap at Circuit of the Americas on Sunday for his first career NASCAR Cup win and upstart 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.

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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 dive-bombing inside of Allmendinger. That spun Allmendinger, winner of the Xfinity Series race on Saturday, 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 with the dive-bomb on Allmendinger.

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“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.”

Chastain and Trackhouse have been fiercely competitive since the start of the season as its drivers have been terrific in NASCAR’s new Next Gen racecar. Daniel Suarez, who spent all of last season as Trackhouse’s only driver, dominated early and led every lap of the first stage before a blown tire destroyed his race on the second lap of the second stage.

Chastain then took over.

He’s been fast and led laps this year and was close to a win at both Las Vegas and Atlanta. On the Austin road course, Chastain led four times for a race-high 31 laps.

His win was his first in 120 career Cup starts.

Bowman finished second for Hendrick Motorsports and a Chevrolet sweep. Christopher Bell was third for Toyota and followed by Chase Elliott of Hendrick, the defending race winner. Reddick was fifth and pole-sitter Ryan Blaney was the highest-finishing Ford driver in sixth.