@nascarcasm: How Ross Chastain played 3D chess in 2022

Behold, Martinsville. There are eight drivers vying for four spots. Ross defies the laws of physics to earn that final spot over Denny. The ultimate checkmate – with that move, Ross is now the most popular driver in the entire universe. Ross is in the Championship 4. Denny is eliminated.

CHESS MOVES: 1. Earning spot in the Championship 4 over your adversary, and 2. Instantly become so popular that anyone who dares wreck you from that point forward will be Public Enemy No. 1.

The Roval was the elimination race for the Round of 12. Ross wins the second stage but suffers damage after hitting the wall in the closing laps. “A HA, KARMA has taken care of Ross Chastain,” his revenge-minded adversaries think. Nope. Ross advanced to the Round of 8 by a mere five points.

CHESS MOVE: It wasn’t one. Probably not part of the plan. Imma say it was, anyways. There are theories on the internet way more unreasonable than this one.

The playoffs begin. Learned-his-lesson Ross is fully manifested. Scenes like this happen – Ross and other playoff drivers attaboying each other after a race. All the drivers like Denny Hamlin who swore payback – well, it never happens. Why? Likely because it was the playoffs, and they have bigger fish to fry than paying Ross back. Also, they’ve gotten in scrums with other drivers by now.

CHESS MOVE: Laying low while all the drivers mad at you get mad at other drivers and forget they were mad at you.

Ross remains peaceful, respectful and relatively incident-free for the remainder of the regular season. At the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, he even says to the field, “Imma go this way and let y’all race. Have fun!” How very, very respectful and considerate of Ross.

CHESS MOVE: Ross will now even go out of his way to avoid making contact with other cars. Like, literally.

Flash forward to July. Super-Aggressive Ross has gone dormant. Peaceful, learned-his lesson Ross emerges. At Pocono Raceway, on a restart, Denny crowds Ross into a wall, setting off a wreck. But here’s the catch – was this bona fide payback, or simply hard racing on a restart? It doesn’t matter. Ross cranks up the mind games. Ross says, “Oh yeah, I totally deserved that payback.”

CHESS MOVE: Unleashing the narrative that Denny has paid him back, even if Denny didn’t pay him back.

Super-Aggressive Ross’ final appearance is at the summer Atlanta race, where his damaged car gets tight and drifts into Martin Truex Jr. again. The ensuing wreck takes out all the cars that probably survived the WWT Raceway wreck. Now everyone wants to pay Ross back. There’s a queue forming. Aric Almirola’s spotter even threatens to do something bad to Ross if he sees him in their local Food Lion, which is an uber-weird threat/flex. We’ve heard of payback on the track but never the soup aisle.

CHESS MOVE: Making enough drivers mad that they can’t get organized enough to determine who should pay him back first, so no one pays him back.

WWT Raceway. St. Louis. The peak of Super-Aggressive Ross. This is the Denny Hamlin Incident. He makes contact with a lot of other cars. Those cars occasionally spin out to make contact with other cars. It’s like “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon,” but with crashes. Drivers are big mad at Ross and threaten to pay him back, most notably Denny Hamlin.

CHESS MOVE: Repeat of previous chess move. He feels REALLY BAD, YOU GUYS. MAN. HE FEELS SO BAD.

Super-Aggressive Ross’ first appearance is at Dover in May. On the final lap, he crowds Martin Truex Jr. on the final lap which ends up sending Truex into the inside wall. Post-race, it was STERN-LECTURE time. Chastain stood and listened respectfully, even though Truex is the least threatening guy from New Jersey you’ll ever meet. Ross later says, “I should have left him more room.”

CHESS MOVE: Establishing himself as really, really aggressive on track, but, like, he feels bad when it happens.

How does it pay off? At Talladega Superspeedway weeks later, Ross Chastain wins in bizarre fashion. Sure, you can claim it was the simple nuances of superspeedway racing that led to Ross’ surprise victory. But can you also claim it’s because all the cars in front of him remembered COTA and got the HELL out of his way? Well, you can’t NOT deny it.

CHESS MOVE: Placing self firmly into the 2022 playoffs with a second win, which means Super-Aggressive Ross is about to manifest.

Aggressive Ross earns his and Trackhouse Racing’s first-ever Cup Series win at the Circuit of The Americas. After being moved by AJ Allmendinger a couple of turns before, Ross Chastain returns the favor. Aggressive but justified … depending on who you ask.

CHESS MOVE: Establishing himself as someone you don’t want behind you. It pays off.

Joey Logano was the champion of the 2022 season … but Ross Chastain was the story. His season was a rollercoaster of ups, downs, conflicts and insane moments that led to a runner-up finish in the standings. It almost worked out too perfectly for Ross. As if … it had been planned from the get-go. As if Ross’s entire season was a game of three-dimensional chess of which his opponents were unaware. Seem unbelievable? Hear me out.

THEORY: Ross Chastain’s entire 2022 campaign was a carefully choreographed, season-long mind game.