Ross Chastain claims Aric Almirola has it out for him on the track after Ally 400
As Ross Chastain did his best to run away from Martin Truex Jr. in the Ally 400 last night, Aric Almirola gave him a tough time. There are times when lapping cars can be a dangerous game in NASCAR. It gets more dangerous when you’re a marked man like Chastain in the Cup Series.
While Ross Chastain has calmed down his on-track antics lately, he still doesn’t have many friends out there. Almirola and his team were sure o give Chastain a hard time. And as a lapped car trying to hold track position, they have every right to do that.
However, it was something that forced Chastain into a risky move. He shot the gap between the 10 and the 51 and split them. Amazingly, he came out on top and put three cars between himself and Truex Jr. on his way to the win.
During the postrace show on Peacock, the Melon Man joked a bit about how Almirola gives him a hard time.
“Aric and his man upstairs on the spotter stand [Joel Edmunds], they’ve got it out for me,” Chastain said. “And they’re open about it. When we come up to lap them at Dover and here they’re going to run me all over the track. So, I took a risky move I felt that was very high risk but it was worth the reward to get that clean air.
“So I had been very patient behind Aric trying to out-wrap him like McReynolds was saying on the stand all day or trying to just roll around him and when I saw them side-by-side I thought if the middle opens, and it opened right as I was thinking it, and I just thought, ‘just get there!’ Then Aric gave it to me, he was nice enough to do it.”
Ross Chastain gets it done in Nashville
Perhaps it wasn’t as dominant of a performance as Kyle Busch had at Gateway. However, Chastain won this race from the pole position and was able to lead 99 laps total on his way to victory. Even when his car fell back in the field a bit, he was right there contending for a top-3 spot.
Ross Chastain battled with Tyler Reddick early and was able to outlast Reddick after the 45 lost a wheel on pit road. Then he had to battle Denny Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr. This was not an easy win, but it was a convincing one for sure.
Just when we all thought Chastain had lost his edge. When we figured he had been pushed into submission by Rick Hendrick and others. Here comes the No. 1 Chevy with a move between two lappers in the winding moments of the race on his way to a checkered flag.
Once again, Ross Chastain is a Cup Series winner. It wasn’t a road course or a superspeedway this time, either. A 1.33-mile oval outside of Nashville, a “real” NASCAR track so to speak. And he did it in a big way.