Chase Elliot labels 'wall-riding' move "embarrassing" despite showering Ross Chastain with big praise

During the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series playoff race at Martinsville Speedway, Ross Chastain performed one of the most-wildest and most controversial moves in the history of the sport. The move helped him earn five positions which allowed him to surpass Denny Hamlin for the final spot in the Championship Race of the 2022 season.

Chastain’s wall-riding move, however, received a high volume of appreciation and criticism at the same time. His fellow competitor Chase Elliott added a lot of praise as he said he respects Chastain’s move to advance into the Cup Series playoffs, but he also called it embarrassing from the global landscape of NASCAR.

Ahead of the Championship 4 event at Phoenix Raceway, Chastain said:

“It’s certainly commendable for a guy to do what he had to do to get the job done. I totally respect that and I think that deserves some respect. From the global landscape of our sport, when you kind of step back and look at it, I think it is a bit embarrassing really.”

He continued:

“NASCAR has put a lot of time and effort into making these cars equal. We’re suspending crew chiefs for weeks for pieces of vinyl being in the wrong place. Then you go break the track record and run two seconds faster than everybody, it’s just like from an integrity standpoint of what we do, is that proper?"

While executing the move, the right side of Ross Chastain’s #1 Chevrolet suffered some damage but he took just 18.845 seconds to cross the final lap. The fastest previous lap in the Martinsville race was set by 2021 Cup Series champion Kyle Larson (20.508 seconds) on Lap 7 of 500.

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Ross Chastain scored a career-first two wins in the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season

Driving the #1 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 for the Trackhouse Racing team, Ross Chastain scored his first career win at the EchoPark Texas Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas. He followed the momentum with noteworthy performances, including his last-lap win at Talladega Superspeedway, and P2 and P3 finishes at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Along with that, he scored 15 top-five and 21 top-10 finishes and led by 692 laps.

During the 2022 Championship Race at Phoenix Raceway, the #1 driver fell two spots short behind Championship winner Joey Logano to clinch his first title. He ended the season as the runner-up in the Championship standings.

Ross Chastain will be seen in action next year in the Cup Series at the Daytona International Speedway on February 19th, 2023.