Did Chastain just open Pandora’s box? Logano warns that he may have.
While running tenth on the white flag lap, he shifted up into fifth gear, put the car into the outside wall, and drove full-throttle against it to the finish line. The brazen move earned him five positions, and gained Chastain entry into the Championship 4.
NASCAR said the move was within the bounds of the rulebook, but will that change in the near-future?
While heaping praise onto the Trackhouse Racing driver, Logano also cautioned about allowing such maneuvers in the future.
“We all did it as kids. We all did it in the video game. That’s how you made speed in the video game, that’s what you did,” laughed Logano.
“Something we all thought about at one point. At least I thought about it a lot, but never really had the need to do it. Also kind of thought of how many races I could have won here by doing that. As spectacular as it was, as much as it worked, the problem is now the box is open, right? Now every Xfinity race, every Truck race, every Cup race, no matter the track, this wall riding is going to be a play. That’s not good. That’s not good.
“I mean, it was awesome, it was cool. It happened for the first time. There’s no rule against it. There needs to be a rule against this one because I don’t know if you want the whole field riding the wall coming to the checkered flag. I don’t know if it’s the safest thing for the driver or the fans when you have a car right up at the wall hauling the mail like that. What if that fence, gate, wasn’t closed all the way? What if it was bent and caught his car? That’s a big risk that Ross was willing to take.
He the concluded: “God bless him, that’s awesome, (but) I don’t think we need to do that every week.”
Will we see it again in the finale?
Logano will be battling for the championship alongside Chastain, Chase Elliott, and Christopher Bell next weekend at Phoenix. With the possibility of it happening again and deciding who is crowned champion, the Team Penske driver called for NASCAR to act immediately.
“That’s why I’m saying we probably need to do something about it before next week,” he declared. Like I said, the box is open now. It’s going to continue to happen until we do something about it. Phoenix presents the opportunity for it, too. A little different entry point and all that. But, yeah, when you’re going for a championship, you’re probably going to do it.
“You’re leading going into the last corner, you’re going to put it in the wall? Geez. It’s cool, it happened once, we don’t need to make this a thing.”
Kyle Larson had reservations about the move as well, and he himself tried something similar at Darlington Raceway in the past.
“I’m a bit embarrassed that I did it because that was pretty embarrassing,” said Larson, whose car remains in contention in the owner playoffs. “That’s not a good look for our sport at all. I don’t know what you guys think. Probably think it’s cool, but I think it’s pretty embarrassing.”