Ross Chastain came into the playoffs with 1 top 5 finish in the final 14 weeks of the regular season. In four playoff races, he’s already doubled that amount with 2 in the last 4. One of which was a runner-up finish in last Sunday’s Round of 12 opener at the Texas Motor Speedway. On a day that he had speed early, developed a throttle sensor in the middle and rebounded late, he brought a car not capable of contending for a win home runner-up.

“It was terrible,” he admitted. “You push the gas and it ain’t got no gas. I noticed something on a few cautions like having the car off in third gear, clutching, dropped the clutch with the ignition on, and it kind of stumbled, but I thought I just had it too low of RPM.

“Then I pit, and that pit stop is when it had already failed, and it wouldn’t go. I’m part throttle to get it fired, and it doesn’t think I’m doing anything.

“From there they walked me through it, and basically I just had to give it a lot of throttle, so the next pit stop for our final two-tire stop was just a whole lot of throttle. I’m sure the eardrums were blown out of everybody behind our pit box, but for our Worldwide Express Chevy, we were not fast enough to run second with two tires. We were with four.”

But, with JJ Yeley’s late race incident in Turn 2 with 25 laps remaining, it was a split strategy decision on what teams would do. Some would pit. Some didn’t. Chastain was among those that elected to stay out.

It paid off.

He got by Bubba Wallace for 2nd after the final restart to score his first career top 10 finish at Texas.

“Early in the race I thought we were one of the best cars, and I wish we could have raced with those guys,” he said. “We just worked our way back with taking four tires a lot, and some bad restarts on my side, but we had the speed, and we showed it all weekend.

“We did everything we needed to do, and at this race, if you follow the chart for running position is everything that the 1 team is about, and I love it.”

Chastain left Texas +12 in the standings heading to Talladega next, the spot of his first career win last spring. Can he grab another great finish in Sunday’s race to put himself in a position to advance to his second straight Round of 8?

“I just want to run good at the track I’m at,” said Chastain. “We go to Talladega and the Roval, we’ll just go try to perform like we did today. If it’s not looking good, just what does the next lap take, what does the next breath take, and whenever we do the right things, those races, they give out the same amount of points as this one, and we’ll go and race them the same way.”

He had a Top-5 finish in both Talladega races a year ago. However, his superspeedway finishes this season are ninth, 13th, 23rd, 35th, 17th. He’s the 14 ranked driver in terms of points scored on these tracks in 2023 too.

“Not really, we just go race, that’s what we do,’’ Chastain said. “They give out the same amount of points in every stage and every race in every one of these rounds. If we finish the race and run up front we get more points, if not, we know we get less. 

“We just go race and that’s what’s so great about what our sport offers right now and what these playoffs offer. They give us a chance after three races they give you a chance and then after three races if you make it, they give you another chance and no matter how it went, as long as you beat four guys. We’ll go see how many points we can scrap up.’’