NASCAR insiders react to wild Ross Chastain, Joey Logano beef at Chicago Street Race

One of the more controversial moments of the Chicago street race came when a big pileup on the track collected Ross Chastain. Chastain would retaliate, taking out Joey Logano with a spin, though it was unclear what role Logano had played in the earlier fracas.

After the race, Logano claimed that Chastain had admitted to wrecking him intentionally. Logano called on NASCAR to fine Chastain for his actions.

“Joey Logano definitely thinks, according to Frontstretch and Bob Pockrass, who went and talked to him, that Ross Chastain wrecked him on purpose,” Jeff Gluck of The Athletic explained on The Teardown podcast. “And he did. I went and saw his in-car camera for Chastain.”

Gluck went through and reviewed the footage from the entire incident, including the in-car cameras of the key players. What he found he laid out on The Teardown.

“So Chastain gets dumped in Turn 1,” Gluck began. “And he gets going again, he spins, he gets going again or whatever and he re-enters and Logano’s like the first car in front of him and the very next corner, in Turn 2, he just dumps Logano.

“And Logano was like furious about it, rightfully so. And he ends up confronting Chastain afterwards and says that Chastain admitted that he dumped him on purpose. And Logano thinks he should be penalized for that.”

Joey Logano was clearly upset with the decision from Chastain. After the race, he went straight over to Chastain’s car on pit road and had an angry word with the driver of the No. 1 car.

Still, it remains unclear why Chastain targeted Logano. Was there prior beef?

“So I went back and I was like, ‘Why was Ross mad at Joey?’ Joey didn’t do that, first of all,” Gluck said. “And it wasn’t like Brandon McReynolds, Ross’ spotter, came on and said, ‘The 22 just got you!’ He didn’t, I went back and listened.

“So finally like five minutes later they’re like, after that had already happened, they’re like, Brandon McReynolds is like, ‘Hey, just to let you know, that was the 2 who jacked up everybody there and did a kamikaze move.’ But too late then, because Ross had already dumped Logano. And that’s when (Ricky) Stenhouse got his damage too. And then Stenhouse has a smashing watermelons gif on X afterwards.”

Bottom line: Chastain managed to collect Joey Logano and irk another driver in the process. It’ll be interesting to see how those drivers react the next time they’re around Chastain in a race.