INDIANAPOLIS — Ross Chastain bet on himself a few years ago and a couple of weird circumstances, it could have paid off in a big way. More on this in a bit. But, it should come to no surprise to anyone that Chip Ganassi Racing has let Kyle Larson out of his contract early. Larson, was a free agent at seasons end anyways, but in wake of his racial comments made on Sunday night, CGR had no other direction to go but to let Larson go immediately.

The move was announced on Tuesday morning.

All three major sponsors on the No. 42 Chevrolet said that they would be willing to stay with CGR but they wouldn’t put their sponsor or colors on that entry so long as Larson was behind the wheel.

Now, where do they go? The easiest decision is to bring up Chastain immediately. The Florida native is currently under contract with CGR anyways. Chastain, 27, ran for Spire Motorsports in conjunction with CGR in the season opening Daytona 500 too as he finished 25th. Also, Chastain would be eligible for the championship this season still as he’s filled in for injured Ryan Newman in the No. 6 Ford for Roush Fenway Racing during the three west coast races.

While he went for points in the NASCAR Xfinity Series this year, he can switch that and go for points now on the Cup level if he is indeed promoted to the seat of the 42. All he’d have to do is get into the top 30 in points and win a race which is entirely possible.

Currently, 30th in Cup points has scored only 33 points, so that would be a feat Chastain could easily do.

Plus, Chastain is a rising star anyways. He’s the same age as Larson (27) and won’t be 28 until December. He took a chance on himself in 2018 when he could have easily returned to JD Motorsports for a full campaign for that year. But, he took his money to buy a few races with CGR later in the year instead and that paid off. He dominated his first start at Darlington only to get caught up in an incident with Kevin Harvick late after leading the most laps. Then, he won his second start in Vegas and was runner-up in his third and final start with them that year a week later in Richmond.

For 2019, he was supposed to be a full time NXS driver for Ganassi anyways. Unfortunately, the fall out from the federal investigation from DC Solar cost Ganassi their NXS team which in turn cost Chastain a ride. He’d end up splitting his time with JDM and Kaulig Racing, even winning the July Daytona race for Kaulig too. He also ran for Niece Motorsports in the Truck Series where he made the Championship 4 after scoring three victories.

So far this season, Chastian has raced in both Truck races, to go along with all four Cup and NXS events too.

Now, he should be the obvious pick for Ganassi moving forward.