If Ross Chastain has any 2022 magic left, it's time to use it

If 2022 was your first season watching NASCAR, you'd have thought that Ross Chastain was part leprechaun.

The humble watermelon farmer from Alva, Fla., signed with Trackhouse Racing for 2022, and the exciting new team was paired with a man who quickly became NASCAR's most exciting — and magical — driver.

Chastain wasn't turning his competitors into guinea pigs on the racetrack, but every time he was in a bind, he'd find a way to come out the victor in some grandiose display of racing that can only be described as wizardry.

Get bumped out of the lead by AJ Allmendinger on the final lap at COTA? How about a bump back that takes out not just Allmendinger, but Alex Bowman as well, making a clear path for Chastain to drive through and claim his first Cup Series win?

Running fourth in the final half-mile at Talladega? How about a bad block and a crash that parts the red sea, enabling Chastain to snag his second win of the season?

And of course, who could forget about Martinsville that fall, where Chastain, needing two points to advance to the Championship Four, pulled off what is arguably the greatest move in NASCAR history, riding the wall in turns three and four at Martinsville to secure a Final Four berth?

Of course, it was Chastain's skill and talent that actually paved the way for his breakout season, but it's a wonder that Lucky Charms didn't sign on as a sponsor, given his uncanny ability to magic his way out of seemingly impossible situations.

In 2023, Chastain won twice more, and despite an abbreviated playoff run, had high expectations going into 2024. Unfortunately, any semblance of magic, luck or speed has all but dried up inside the Trackhouse Racing shop, leaving Chastain and teammate Daniel Suarez to flounder in the middle of the pack.

While Suarez at least has a win in 2024 that guarantees a playoff berth, Chastain has no such win to fall back on. An incident in Sunday's race at Pocono dropped him to 16th on the playoff grid, hanging on to the final Cup Series playoff berth by just 27 points over Bubba Wallace.

It almost seems like whatever good magic Chastain used in 2022 has been overtaken by some force of evil. Whenever the No. 1 car has had speed this year, things have seemed to go south. A potential runner-up finish at Texas vanished due to Chastain being spun by William Byron and a season-saving win at Nashville was thwarted due to another Hendrick driver (Kyle Larson) crashing Chastain after he led late in Stage Three.

Chastain hasn't scored a top-10 finish since New Hampshire on June 23 and hasn't put together consecutive top-10 efforts since early March.

With a wild-card race at Daytona where the entire field has a chance to win their way into the playoffs looming, Chastain and crew chief Phil Surgen are now put in between a rock and a hard place, unsure whether or not to play it conservatively for points or go all out for a win.

Depending on who wins over the five remaining races in the regular season, there may come a point where that choice is made for them; if any one of the 18 drivers below Chastain in points were to win, he'd suddenly be outside of the provisional playoff picture.

At this point, the No. 1 team doesn't care if a win comes via a dominant car or a rain-shortened affair. So If Chastain has any fairy dust left in his arsenal, it's time to use it.