By Luis Torres, Staff Writer
The 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season have proven to be a year Ross Chastain has had superb outings or making enemies on the track. Notably, with Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin. Now the latest victim in the eyes of the Cup competitors was Hamlin’s teammate Kyle Busch.
During Sunday’s Federated Auto Parts 400 at Richmond Raceway, Chastain had won the opening stage but would have an up and down afternoon from there. Rather than being an early contender being the headline, it was the battle between Busch that changed everything in the final stage.
As expected on restarts, it was an all out battle across the leaderboard. Busch restarted on the outside of Row 5 with Chastain behind him.
Then Chastain poked his nose in the middle of Busch and Ty Dillon entering the backstretch. Once Chastain had an advantage over Dillon, he entered Turn 3 battling with Busch being next line when things went south.
Chastain clipped Busch, forcing Martin Truex, Jr. to ease off in order to avoid running into his teammate. An accordion effect ensued with Erik Jones’ plowing into the left rear quarter panel of Chastain, sending him around and collected Truex.
The rest of the field avoided the mayhem and all parties got their cars back going. Hamlin’s crew chief Chris Gabehart was quoted over the radio saying this about Chastain:
In terms of damage for Busch, his back end made contact towards the outside pit wall, but kept fighting. Jones on the other hand, the contact with Chastain ended his afternoon, finishing 35th and was the only driver out due to an accident.
“We were just in the wrong spot and got caught in someone else’s mess. We made contact and killed the right front,” Jones on the accident. “We struggled all day with our FOCUSfactor Chevy, just couldn’t find the balance we needed to run up front. Not our day. We’ll load up and get ready for Watkins Glen next weekend.”
Chastain’s afternoon never fully recovered and ended up 18th to end a disappointing race for Trackhouse Racing. Busch on the other hand, recovered fairly to bring the No. 18 M&Ms Toyota Camry home in ninth.
The battle with Chastain remained fresh in Busch’s memory, saying he’s simply…
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