Chastain Wins, Love Laments "Joke" O'Reilly Weather-Shortened Race Finish

CONCORD, N.C. -- The NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series Charbroil 300 was certainly one of the races of all-time on Saturday night at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Ross Chastain was awarded the win in a weather-shortened finish, which left nobody feeling good after a lengthy afternoon that featured a weather delay of more than four hours. In the end, the race, only completed 91 laps, 37 of which were under green flag conditions.

The fact that the race even got restarted at all on Saturday night was nothing short of a miracle, or perhaps an oversight by NASCAR Race Control, as a thick fog had rolled over the 1.5-mile speedway, rendering a very clouded view for the spotters keeping an eye out for the drivers below.

“It was so bad,” Chastain said of the visibility in his post-race press conference.

However, despite the concerns from spotters in the spotters stand, which were communicated over team radios, the race, which had been red-flagged due to rain on Lap 34, restarted at around 10 PM ET.

On Lap 52, a multi-car melee triggered by Sheldon Creed ensnarled Brandon Jones, Brent Crews, and Harrison Burton -- three of the Toyota Racing contenders.

After the crash, Connor Zilisch asked his team on his radio, "What caused that one?"

His team responded, "Spotters not being able to see," and Zilisch would fire back, "Oh nice."

It was that kind of night.

On Lap 73, another visibility issue impacted the race. Dawson Cram's No. 35 Joey Gase Motorsports machine blew an engine in Turn 1, but due to the foggy conditions, NASCAR Race Control was unable to quickly see that a coat of oil had been placed in the racing groove.

As the field came through Turn 1 on the next time by, several drivers, including Chastain, the race leader, skidded into the outside wall.

At this point, the race was 16 laps shy of being an official race, as the NASCAR Rule Book states a race must complete half of the distance or the second Stage, whichever comes first. On Saturday evening, that meant Stage 2, which ended on Lap 90, would have to be completed.

After 17 consecutive caution flag laps, NASCAR pulled the field down to pit road due to increasing mist, rain, and fog. After a few moments, Race Control called the race complete, and Chastain was awarded the victory.

“Yeah, there at the end, and we lost the track quickly. Visibility was tough,” Chastain said. “I think that played — I mean, [my spotter, Brandon] McReynolds couldn’t see some safety trucks. He said, ‘I know they went in over there at Turn 2, but just watch out, I don’t know where they’re at,’ and then there was liquid down that got put down in Turn 1. Speedy dry then gets blown up into the air, and gets hung in the fog, it looked like. Yep, glad, glad, obviously, the decisions were made how they were. Visibility was bad.”

While the odd race played out perfectly for Chastain, who honored Kyle Busch in victory lane with one of Busch's patented post-race bows, the mood was less joyous for runner-up finisher Jesse Love, who grew up idolizing Busch, and drives for the same Richard Childress Racing team that Busch had driven for since 2023.

After climbing from his No. 2 Chevrolet, Love expressed his displeasure for what he felt was a laughable finish to the race.

“Obviously, it’s a -- like, I’m mad, right, so I think it’s a complete joke handling it how they handled it,” Love said of the finish in his post-race interview on The CW. “I was really mad when I got out of the car, for obvious reasons."

A seething Love, then remembered the loss that the NASCAR community suffered this week with the death of Busch, and explained that in the grand scheme of things, the finish to Saturday night's race is insignificant comparatively.

"Being on top of the pit box, and realized I gotta do an interview, and then I kind of realized if this week has taught us anything, it’s that this all doesn’t matter as much as we think it does, right?” Love said.

Austin Hill, Love's Richard Childress Racing teammate who is slated to drive Busch's NASCAR Cup Series car in Sunday's Coca-Cola 600, finished third.

William Sawalich, and Corey Day rounded out the top-five finishers in the race, which concluded after 91 laps in what was originally scheduled to be a 200-lap contest.

Charbroil 300 Race Results

1. 9-Ross Chastain
2. 2-Jesse Love
3. 21-Austin Hill
4. 18-William Sawalich
5. 17-Corey Day
6. 1-Connor Zilisch
7. 39-Ryan Sieg
8. 0-Cole Custer
9. 91-Carson Kvapil
10. 88-Rajah Caruth
11. 8-Sammy Smith
12. 99-Parker Retzlaff
13. 96-Anthony Alfredo
14. 26-Dean Thompson
15. 92-Leland Honeyman
16. 87-Austin Green
17. 45-Lavar Scott
18. 48-Patrick Staropoli
19. 28-Kyle Sieg
20. 53-David Starr
21. 02-Ryan Ellis
22. 27-Jeb Burton
23. 55-Joey Gase
24. 31-Blaine Perkins
25. 07-Josh Bilicki
26. 42-Nathan Byrd
27. 44-Brennan Poole
28. 32-Andrew Patterson
29. 7-Justin Allgaier
30. 51-Jeremy Clements
31. 54-Taylor Gray
32. 00-Sheldon Creed
33. 35-Dawson Cram
34. 38-JJ Yeley
35. 20-Brandon Jones
36. 41-Sam Mayer
37. 19-Brent Crews
38. 24-Harrison Burton

Add us as a preferred source on Google