Sunday’s race at Martisville was the last opportunity for drivers in the playoffs to punch their ticket to the Championship 4, who will race for the NASCAR Cup Series title in Phoenix next week.
On the final lap, three of the spots were up for grabs, with Christopher Bell winning the race to ensure he got a spot alongside Joey Logano. Behind him, the battle for the final two spots couldn’t have been any closer as Ross Chastain pulled off one of the greatest moves of all time to pass a number of cars, including Denny Hamlin, on the final turn to get to the finish line behind Chase Elliott and knock Hamlin out.
Chastain floored it into the wall going into turn 4 and just held it wide open as his car scraped along the wall, flying by everyone in the corner and eventually slipping just past Hamlin before the start/finish line.
ABSOLUTELY WILD!
BELL WINS! CHASTAIN WITH AN INCREDIBLE MOVE! #NASCARPlayoffs pic.twitter.com/aFW9YP6PUZ
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) October 30, 2022
It is an insane move and Chastain explained afterwards that it’s something he’s done before…in NASCAR 2005 on the Nintendo Gamecube when he was a kid and he always wanted to know if it’d work in real life. It turns out, it does and it got him into the last race of the season with a chance to win the Cup Series title.
"Played a lot of NASCAR 2005 on the GameCube."@RossChastain explained his video-game move. #NASCAR pic.twitter.com/4jkF6BzAgk
— NASCAR on NBC (@NASCARonNBC) October 30, 2022
For every kid that ever tried some wild stuff in a video game to win a race, this is vindication for us all that we weren’t cheating or doing something you could only do in the game. Chastain did it in real life and made himself a legend in the process.
Source: https://uproxx.com/sports/ross-chastain-nascar-martinsville-pass-wall-video-game/
