Had saner minds not prevailed, William Byron and Ross Chastain could’ve very well picked a beef with each other at the end of the race in Texas last Sunday. After getting spinned out by Byron in the final lap, Chastain chose to walk away from the pit road silently without so much as a word. Following the sequences that unfolded through this week, there remains a doubt if the two have put the incident behind them.
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Right from the Texas pit road, Byron had been regretful that he had to make contact with Chastain. He maintained that he did not have an option trying to go for the win and did not intend to spin a fellow Chevy driver out. Following those sessions in front of the mic, he spoke to Fox Sports’ on Tuesday and revealed that his calls to Chastain had gone unanswered.
With both the drivers now in Talladega for the next Cup Series race, there have been further updates on where they stand. Chastain spoke to reporters about the issue and said that he had a conversation with Byron. However, he refrained from revealing any details about the mood around the call. He reiterated that nothing changed for him in regards to working with Byron as usual.
“I don’t have any opinion of how it all happened,” he said. “Nothing I want to talk about.” Chastain finished in a lowly 32nd place because of the contact with Byron and missed out a potential top-5 finish. Being someone known for not taking well to being messed with on the race track, it wouldn’t be surprising if he retaliated on the superspeedway.
Ross Chastain’s mindset about the Texas-incident going to race in Talladega
“They definitely evolve,” Chastain said of driver relationships after such incidents. “We all are learning from each other and remembering things. We’re people. We’re humans. We make mistakes and we make really good calls or really bad calls, and really good decisions or bad decisions. So I don’t think twice about last week or anything.”
Chastain is aware that dwelling on the Texas mishap isn’t going to do him a lot of good. He underlined that he has had a good week of preparation for Talladega and will be focusing on the coming challenge. “I promise you William Byron has not been — this is the most I’ve talked about or thought about him,” he concluded.
