The plan was to fix the primary car.
By far the fastest in practice, Ross Chastain completed 20 laps at Charlotte Motor Speedway when the left rear tire went down. Chastain couldn’t save his Chevrolet, and it spun and hit the wall, driver’s side, in Turn 3. Once the machine was back in the garage, crew chief Phil Surgen and the team began their analysis on what was bent, broken and needed and to be replaced.
But approximately an hour to an hour and a half into that venture, the plan changed.
“As we started pulling parts off, it just became more evident that there was a section of the rear frame that was bent probably beyond repair,” Surgen said. “Then at that moment, it became a necessity to get to a backup car… Although it took a long time to identify, by the time we got all the parts and the car disassembled to the point where we could fully see all the damage, it was evident that we needed to go to a backup car.”
Chastain did not make a qualifying run because of the crash. His official listed starting position was 40th, last, for the Coca-Cola 600.
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