Ross Chastain’s runner-up finish a ‘really, really, really good kind of hurt’

LAS VEGAS — It all seemed perfect Sunday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. At the track Ross Chastain scored his first NASCAR victory four years ago, he was in position to win the Round of 8 playoff race and advance to next month’s championship event.

But as often happens in this desert city, dreams wilt.

Three laps from the finish, Joey Logano took advantage of fresher tires and slipped past Chastain, snatching that ticket to the title race. There was nothing Chastain could do but watch the checkered flag wave for Logano instead of himself. 

“It’s a really, really, really good kind of hurt, but it still hurts,” Chastain said. “You want to win, but again, you run second in a playoff race and we competed all day long and we did almost everything right.”

It was something wrong that helped Logano get by Chastain and force Chastain to have to wait a week for his next chance to reach the championship race.

Logano led on Lap 196 when the field came to pit road under caution. He restarted eighth. 

Logano again pitted under caution at Lap 229. He went from second to ninth.

Crew chief Paul Wolfe said an issue with the left rear tire led to Logano losing spots on both pit stops. That would prove critical to the finish.

“We had kind of like a bad hang and the wheel didn’t get on the dry pin on the initial hang and then it kind of put some material in the holes of the wheel,” Wolfe said. “Then it just makes it very hard for it to draw up tight. It eventually got tight, but then the wheel was wedged on there … so then we paid the penalty on the next stop, as well, getting it off.”

Losing that track position was significant because when the caution came out on Lap 247, Logano was ninth, while Chastain was third.

It didn’t make sense for