Kyle Busch & Ross Chastain Combine to Create NASCAR History as the Winner Leads Only the Final Lap in Consecutive Races for the First Time in Bristol & Talladega Respectively

The 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season has truly been one-of-a-kind so far. Think about it, we’ve seen big teams underperforming and small teams punching above their weight. We’ve seen legendary names struggle while the young guns take the charge. Similarly, there was one thing that become a notable first in the sport after the Talladega race that Ross Chastain won.

That thing was the manner in which the race winner took the win in two successive races.

Because last week, at Bristol, it was Kyle Busch who got lucky and took the win in the very end. Similarly in Talladega, it was Ross Chastain who got lucky and took the win in the very end.

What both of these race wins have in common is that the winners only led one lap, the lap that counted, which is a first in NASCAR history according to The Third Turn.

“According to our database tools, for the first time in the entire history of the @NASCAR Cup Series the winner has only led the final lap in consecutive races (Kyle Busch at Bristol and Ross Chastain at Talladega),” they tweeted.

Ross Chastain knows he didn’t do anything for the win

As soon as the checkered flag dropped at the Talladega Superspeedway and Ross Chastain realized he was a race winner for the second time this season, he screamed over his radio, “Holy cow! We didn’t do anything! We just stayed down there!” 

The Trackhouse Racing driver acknowledged that instead of making the same mistake of going to the top early, this time, he stayed where he was.

“I did that a couple of times, I was like, ‘I’ll just ride on the bottom. I’m not going to lose the race for us,'” Chastain added. “I have no idea. They just kept going up. They just kept moving out of the way.”

“We won, dude!”

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