NASCAR’s Cup Series race at Circuit of the Americas lasted well over three hours. It’s something fans may reserve to accept only at the Coca Cola 600.
The entirety of the race wasn’t perfect, but the finish more than made up for it.
The finish to today's NASCAR race at COTA.
Ross Chastain gets the last punch on AJ Allmendinger and Alex Bowman.
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— Always Race Day (@AlwaysRaceDay) March 27, 2022
Ross Chastain becomes the third, first-time winner in the series this season, through just six races of action. For what it’s worth, I’m not sold on that just being the new car creating parity.
Chase Briscoe was due for his first win and Austin Cindric may be off to one of the best starts as anyone has been this season.
Sunday just went to Chastain – he got the chance to throw the last punch and he delivered it in style.
For the first time since the second race of the 2021 season – when Christopher Bell won at Daytona’s Rolex 24 course – fans saw an unpredictable winner at a road race.
Chastain had been fast early this year, but for the most part in recent memory, the road course ringers on tour had their way with the rest of the NASCAR field.
For a year, I remember my dad and I texting each other saying, ‘Road course? Yeah that’ll go to Chase Elliott or Martin Truex Jr.‘
On Sunday, though, the ringers didn’t have as dominating of a performance as they usually do. Yeah, Allmendinger and Elliott were routinely in the top five, but guys like Kyle Larson and Austin Cindric had far from easy days.
The question on why that is will likely be answered at the next road course in Sonoma, but that’s three months away. Whether it was the Gen-7 cars, the first look at COTA, or other drivers getting better at the tracks that turn both ways, it was different Sunday.
The gap in road course talent and the field has shrunk.
By the way, even with that, someone needs to stick A.J. Allmendinger in a Cup Series car full-time. With as many road courses as they have on the schedule, you’re guaranteed a playoff birth and you’ll probably have a good shot at being alive going into the Round of 8 in the playoffs, end rant.
Alex Bowman is the best example of that. The Hendrick Motorsports driver has gotten behind the wheel of a number of different cars in the past few months.
After running the Chili Bowl and starting his own sprint car team that he debuted in the World of Outlaws with this year, Bowman ran a truck race on Saturday to help himself get ready for the race.
Honestly, too, if he was a second slower on that last lap, he probably wins that race.
Now, to connect back a bit to what may have caused some of that parity – turn 1 at COTA demolished the entirety of the field as far as time on track went.
With how spread out the cars get when taking that corner three and four-wide, I almost want to say move the starting line to any other part of the track and see if there’s more action.
You’ve got to give drivers that aren’t starting in the first two rows a better chance at getting to the front, because with the current layout, the front row could exit a second ahead of the sixth, just because of traffic there.
I’m less concerned with that than I am with the wheel issues and the gun-shy caution call, though.
NASCAR has got to do something about making sure these wheels stay on. It shouldn’t be a competitive advantage to get the wheel nut tight and get lucky that it wraps around flush.
The caution call ended up not changing anyone’s fortunes, but the amount of time that NASCAR waited until calling it for a stalled Ricky Stenhouse Jr. allowed a multitude of cars to get to pit road beforehand and pick up some extra track position in the process.
If one of those cars had ended up winning the race – we’re having a different conversation today.
Overall, I thought we left COTA with more questions than we had going into it. That can be both good and bad, but the biggest takeaway should be unanimous:
That was one helluva finish.
