1. Ross Chastain just did something that would have been impossible before this season
We’re not talking about winning NASCAR Cup Series races, because there are plenty of people who suspected that Ross Chastain would be able to win at the highest level of stock car racing if given an opportunity with the right team. And “winning with Trackhouse Racing Team,” while technically correct since he only joined the organization in 2022, isn’t what we’re going for here either.
No, when Chastain emerged with a dramatic last-lap victory at Talladega Superspeedway, he was actually driving the same car he drove to his first Cup Series win at Circuit of the Americas.
Kind of, anyway.
The No. 1 Chevrolet Chastain wheeled to victory lane was indeed the same chassis he drove at COTA. It’s just that a lot of the parts may have been different, thanks to the interchangeable nature of many of the components of a Next Gen car.
In the past, NASCAR teams would need several different types of chassis in their inventory for different types of tracks: superspeedways, intermediates, etc. No one, unless they had no choice would try to race the same chassis at COTA and Talladega in the past. But it’s not just possible to compete that way now, Trackhouse has shown you can win as well.
“All the cars right now are essentially universal,” Chastain’s crew chief Phil Surgen told NASCAR.com. “We took that car after it was done at COTA, cleaned it up, set it up a little bit differently to come here (Talladega). There’s no reason it can’t race at a different (type) of track, (like) an oval next time, a downforce oval.”
The point is simply this: The Next Gen car has proven, in less than a season, that it’s accomplished one of its goals, which is to reduce the amount of money and resources it takes to field a winning Cup Series team. That’s a victory worth celebrating, even this early in the game.
2. Oh, and Chastain is definitely a championship contender, at least…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Frontstretch…