By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service
The final 2025 Playoff transfer position literally came down to the last corner of the final lap of competition in Sunday’s Bank of America ROVAL 400 at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Road Course – pitting one of the most exciting drivers in the sport, Ross Chastain, against the reigning series champion Joey Logano for that last position to move forward with title eligibility.
Trackhouse Racing’s Chastain certainly made a dramatic last-ditch effort to claim that final championship transfer position, running his Chevy hard into the final chicane and hitting the Toyota of Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin in the final corner of the road course – the contact spinning both cars. As their cars sat facing backwards on track, Chastain put his No. 1 Chevrolet in reverse to zip past the checkered flag rear bumper first.
Unfortunately for him, in the immediate aftermath of the collision, three other cars got by – including Logano, who was able to secure the eighth and final championship transfer position after chasing Chastain for most of the race. Logano finished 20th and Chastain 21st.
Last year’s regular season champion Tyler Reddick, his 23XI Racing teammate Bubba Wallace and Logano’s Team Penske teammate Austin Cindric were also eliminated from championship contention following the race.
“I’d re-start the whole day,’’ Chastain replied when asked what he would have done differently in Sunday’s race, won by his Trackhouse teammate Shane Van Gisbergen.
In addition to the final lap drama, Chastain uncharacteristically suffered a pair of pit road miscues – each costing him valuable positions on track during earlier portions of the race. He missed the hard left-hander exiting the pits following a stop during the Stage 1 break then was penalized for speeding on pit road on his final stop with 22 laps remaining in the 109-lap race.
“Just unforced errors,’’ a disappointed Chastain said. “Just terrible. It’s heart-breaking for almost 200 employees at Trackhouse. … everybody that makes us go around. [Team owner] Justin [Marks] hired me to carry this 1-car and drive it and be a leader and I just completely unraveled our day. We had the speed.
“Not acceptable. Just completely unacceptable,’’ said Chastain, adding. “It’s terrible to get to this level and not perform. You watch, you learn and you study for half your life to get here and to fail is a terrible feeling right now. But I will wake up tomorrow and get right back to work.’’
For his part, Hamlin said he had no idea the dire points situation Chastain was involved in at that point in the race. In fact, Hamlin said he didn’t even know what points position the two were actually in on the last lap. “I didn’t know anything about anything going on,’’ Hamlin conceded. “I wish I had known. … I don’t fault Ross at all. I just wish I knew so I could have been prepared or made a different decision.’’
Shortly after climbing out of their cars on pit road, Logano and Chastain spoke to each other – ultimately exchanging smiles and pats on the back after the spirited competition on track.
“It’s tight, every spot,’’ Logano said. “If you don’t think regular season races matter, look at that. One point is the difference in making it.”
“We’re still alive, baby. Now we’ve got to win. We’ve got to win from here.”
Unlike Chastain who was only a dozen points below the transfer line coming into the race, Reddick, Wallace and Cindric essentially needed to win to move forward in Playoff competition.
But Reddick, in particular, looked poised for a dramatic turn after winning pole position in the No. 45 23XI Racing Toyota. He led the opening three laps and finished 10th – best among the four drivers trying to race their way into a transfer position. But it wasn’t enough.
“I don’t know if anything necessarily went wrong today for how the race was playing out,’’ Reddick said. “We wanted to prioritize setting up to win the race. I think you could pick it apart – a couple restarts and what not, just kind of, as the race unfolded our long run was not where it needed to be with the top guys.
“Stage three there, we didn’t make the progress that we needed too, so we kind of went long there hoping for a caution there, and lost a lot of spots, but at the end of the day, we were trying to set ourselves up for a caution late.”
Wallace finished 15th and Cindric, a renowned road course racer, ended up 37th in the 37-car field after essentially being collateral damage in an early-race incident.
With the points re-set for the next three-race elimination round – with races at Las Vegas, Talladega, Ala. and Martinsville, Va. – Hamlin takes a two-point edge over Penske’s Ryan Blaney to the Vegas 1.5-miler. Hendrick Motorsports teammates Kyle Larson and William Byron along with Hamlin’s JGR teammate Christopher Bell are four points off the lead.
Joe Gibbs Racing’s Chase Briscoe and Hendrick’s Chase Elliott are both 14 points back and Logano starts this penultimate round 24 points behind Hamlin.
Logano is the defending winner of next Sunday’s South Point 400 (5:30 p.m. ET, USA Network, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) Playoff race at Las Vegas.
