AUSTIN, Texas — Tyler Reddick and his dominant No. 45 Monster Energy Toyota was the class of the field throughout the day. Starting second and leading the most laps, he survived the pandemonium of three overtimes and ended Sunday (March 26) in victory lane.
However, his dominant run didn’t go unchallenged towards the end of the race. The defending winner at Circuit of the Americas, Ross Chastain, pressured in the closing laps.
Chastain started the weekend with a smash, literally. The humble watermelon farmer went 251 feet up the COTA observation tower to smash four watermelons in celebration of his first career win last year for him and his Trackhouse team.
“It was such a big day for our company,” team owner Justin Marks said, “You can’t help but drive in here and have memories from that great day. In that respect, Circuit of the Americas will always be something special to our company.”
Qualifying in 12th, it wouldn’t be an easy day for the No. 1 WWEX Chevrolet.
Through out the race, Chastain was committed to a two-stop strategy to conquer the 3.41-mile road course. He had moved himself from inside the top 10 in stage one to inside the top five following stage two, but with 25 laps to go in regulation, dirt in turn 8 brought out a debris caution and fuel mileage became a increased concern for teams.
After handling the restart, Chastain found himself behind the two most dominant cars of the day in Reddick and William Byron, who battled hard with each other for the lead despite fuel concerns.
Mired back conserving his resources, Chastain and his teammate Daniel Suarez were given the green light to pursue the leaders. Chastain got to the bumper of Byron but couldn’t get past him. Meanwhile, the No. 1 would be caught by the slightly more speedy No. 99.
It seemed like Chastain’s teammate Suarez could compete for the win until a late-race caution came out for Brad Keselowski losing power, setting up a restart with nine to go that would change the course of Chastain’s day.
First, Chastain’s crew had trouble getting the right-side tires on and relegated their driver back to 16th. On the restart, Chastain was spun by Erik Jones and stalled, causing another caution. Chastain would take fresh tires and would restart at the end of the lead-lap cars.
Luckily for Chastain, the race was only going to get more wild.
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