Chastain makes an early exit at Talladega, playoffs in jeopardy

Ross Chastain wishes he could take back the try-to-shoot-the-gap move he made on Sunday afternoon at Talladega Superspeedway. It wound up taking him out of the race at the end of the first stage.

The Trackhouse car bounced off Kyle Busch and then spun in front of Christopher Bell in Turn 3 on lap 60. Chastain was trying to shoot past the slowing Busch and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. -- stacked up in the far outside lane as Stenhouse ran out of fuel.

It was too small a hole for Chastain to make with two other drivers running side-by-side to his left. The No. 1 shot to the inside of Busch, hit Busch’s driver’s side, and then spun to the left in the path of Bell and the field.

“I saw [Stenhouse] slow and tagging the fence and obviously they were that much slower. I should have just stayed in behind them,” Chastain said. “[Going] four wide was obviously not the right call. I saw a hole and just tried to slide through there. Wish I wouldn’t have.”

The contact from hitting Bell caused significant right-front damage to Chastain’s Chevrolet. He will finish 38th, last, without any stage points in the YellaWood 500.

Bell’s team repaired the damage to the nose of his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota and he rejoined the race.

Chastain entered the weekend 12 points above the NASCAR Cup Series playoff grid cutline. He is likely to fall below a transfer spot going into the Charlotte road course, the elimination race for the second round.

“No idea; I don’t look too far ahead,” Chastain said of potentially being in must-win mode next week. “We’ll see how it all shakes out the rest of the day.”