Ross Chastain Silences Doubters

Sunday’s win for Ross Chastain had been a long time coming. The watermelon Farmer from Florida was riding a 42-race winless streak that dated back to last April in Talladega. With all the expectations for the 2023 season surrounding this camp, being winless was starting to weigh on him.

Chastain began 2023 nicely. He was leading the points in the Month of May in fact. Unfortunately for him, a lot of noise was surrounding him as well.

Between the incident with Noah Gragson in Talladega, then the fight in Kansas, to the clashes with Kyle Larson, it was enough for Hendrick Motorsports, most notably Rick Hendrick, to speak out against the talented driver.

They felt like he was too aggressive. Too over the line. It led to his bosses at Trackhouse Racing even sitting him down after the crash with Larson on a late race restart in Darlington, a day that he went from a top two finish to 29th.

In the races after those pointed conversations?

22nd. 22nd. 10th.

To the outside world, Chastain was no longer Ross Chastain. He seemed to lack the aggression that he once had. It was the aggression that he used to put him where he was today and what made him a polarizing driver in this sport today.

With an off week and a track suited well for him coming up in Nashville, Chastain was a driver that I had my eyes on for the Ally 400. How would he look?

The Monday morning quarterback says he’s back.

Chastain earned his first career pole on Saturday and a night later, led 99 of 300 laps en route to his first win of the season.

“This is why every little kid out there anywhere in the world, when you get criticized, and you’re going to if you’re competitive, they will try to tear you down. You will start believing you can’t do it,” Chastain said after scoring his third career NASCAR Cup Series victory.

“You have to go to your people, trust in the process, read your books, trust the big man’s plan upstairs, just keep getting up and going to work.

“I got to tell you, a lot of self-reflection throughout all this. I had a group that believed in me and they didn’t let me get down. They bring rocket ships and I just try to point them to Victory Lane.”

Chastain said that he never necessarily wavered in his weekly approach, but when Rick Hendrick speaks out against you, well you better listen.

Listen Chastain did. This was a different Chastain, one that was still aggressive but only when need be. He felt like it was poetic justice to win his first natural oval race of his Cup career by having to hold off Martin Truex Jr. and Denny Hamlin, two drivers who were outspoken against him over the course of the last 13 months.

“Did you see the two cars I passed? Felt pretty good,” he says.

“Look, I first met Martin Truex Jr. at a Bass Pro Shops in Fort Myers, Florida when our local one opened. He signed a Chevy Trucks hat for me. Still have it on my childhood bedroom wall hanging up. The Sharpie has about faded off, barely still there. He was a hero, idol of mine.

“To go to battle against him, have criticism from him, go back and forth, then to have him air block me at Dover like he did, when I thought we were just as fast, was humbling. To go up against my heroes like that, to beat him tonight, drive by him and the 11, was definitely a statement. It felt good. I’m proud that we were able to do that.”

That’s why his emotions poured out on his burnout that saw him smoke the tires of his No. 1 Chevrolet nearly the entire front stretch at Nashville.

“That’s just a desire to win. I got to tell you, it’s just so hard at this level. It’s the best of the best. It’s where I’ve wanted to be since I was 18 years old, from studying for over 10 years just to qualify better let alone go race for a Cup race win.

“Along the way, the journey, I’m so happy that my group is here, everybody that supports me. Yeah, look, it’s a Cup win. I don’t care what happened last month, the rest of my life, it’s a freaking Cup win.”

Team owner, Justin Marks, says that this win was massive for Chastain and this team.

“I mean, it’s big,” he said. “I’ve said this a couple times today. There was not really a moment, a sit-down moment, with Ross. It wasn’t like, Do this or do that.

“I have been going through this experience as a Cup owner alongside Ross as a Cup driver for the first time. He’s made mistakes. I’ve made mistakes. We’re learning together.

“I think after Darlington, there was such an opportunity to have such a moment for our team that I think we just sat down and go, How do we make sure that we don’t miss these opportunities? When we’ve got opportunities to make statements and win races, with the speed we have in our race cars, how good everybody is, let’s make sure we’re making decisions to put ourselves in a position to capitalize and have nights like we did tonight.

“We talked about that the last couple weeks. It’s a huge moment because, I think I’ve said it sort of many times today, Brad went through this, Kevin Harvick went through this, Tony, Carl. You have guys that show up that have so much speed and aggression, they have to learn how to compete at this level and compete in this series.

“That’s the process that Ross is going through right now. You look at a race like tonight, I mean, he just did everything right, everything perfectly. He had a super fast car. The conditions changed from day to night. They ran three-wide for three laps, which was incredible. He did everything right.

“To answer your question, I think it’s a huge win for us because I think it’s a big moment for him and this team personally because it says that we have an opportunity to win so many races and compete and win for championships in this series. Such a bright future ahead of us. We’re all, like, super motivated and inspired for the future.”

Marks says that the conversations though between the two in wake of the Darlington incident weren’t as stern as some expected it to be and that he doesn’t fully remember exactly what was even said. What he does remember was that it wasn’t that “boss and employee” type of chat. It was more of a pair of friends sitting down and having a discussion.

“It was like, Hey, let’s look at this opportunity we’ve had. Let’s just work together to try to make sure we’re making the right decisions here, taking the most advantage of our opportunity,” Marks said.

“For me, I mean, I talked to Rick Hendrick at Darlington. I talked to Roger a little bit, not about Ross, but just in general about stuff. These guys, they’ve got decades of experience with lots of different drivers. They’ve been through different eras of the sport. They’ve seen drivers come in with lots of talent, making different kinds of decisions. They have all that experience.

“For me, I don’t have that experience. I don’t have that bank of knowledge or whatever. I’m kind of going through with him, Man, I just want you to go, I want to tell you to not change anything, let’s just go.

“It’s complicated because we have to work with Chevrolet, with our key partners, obviously Hendrick and RCR, great partners of our team. We have to make sure we don’t fracture that partnership, that we can all work well together.

“That conversation was like, Let’s work hard, the both of us, to just not throw away amazing opportunities that we have. I’ll help you as much as I can. You try to help me. Let’s go through this process together. That’s what the conversation was. It turned into me sitting him down and telling him something, which is not the truth. That’s not what happened.”

Truex and Hamlin Just Didn’t Have Enough Clean Air

As good as the racing was on Sunday night, the dreaded dirty air word also crept in. It’s to why Ross Chastain won and why Martin Truex Jr. had no answer.

“Just needed to get the lead. Once we lost it, I probably made a bad move taking the bottom on a restart,” said Truex Jr.. “Just too loose in the long runs. I could hang with whoever was leading. Just could never get off the corner good enough to get a move. Just lacking side bite. Overall just burning the rear tires off too much.

“Just really loose at the end of the race there as well. Just needed a little bit. Got lots of speed. Just could never get the balance where it needed to be.

“Without having clean air, it was difficult, so… Overall good night for our Bass Pro Tracker Toyota Camaro. Guys are doing a great job. Just that close again.

“If we can keep doing this, we will be in good shape.”

Ross Chastain admitted that track position helped him too. Once he lost the lead, it was hard to get it back. Once he got it back, he was hard to pass.

“We got the lead early obviously with the pole, then we got passed pretty quickly,” he said. “Martin and William were really fast. They were ahead of us, Tyler was ahead of us. Tyler had his issue. There were three of us. I knew there was one more that would come up and race, it was the 11.

“As we went into the night, as the sun went down, I was fast enough to catch the 11 and 19 for the end of stage two, but I couldn’t get by them. Martin air blocked me all over the track. All right, well, try to get him in stage three. Was clearly faster. Stage three fired off, we all singled out. I had a shot at Martin for a few laps. He got by me. He actually waved and gave me the peace sign when he cleared me early in stage three. Okay, he’s not mad at me, okay. The sun went down and our Worldwide Express Chevy came to life. Like a light switch, I flipped the switch and got more grip, filled the grip bottle up. From there I was able to drive by the 19 and the 11 before the pit stops, which I think was key.

“They put up a fight, but they let me race them. They didn’t just air block like they did at the end of the stage two, like Martin did, like he did at Dover. I think I’ve helped move the needle and teach some of these guys on track.

“He let it just naturally play out. The 11 did as well. When he got to me at the end, I air blocked him back. We got the gap. I was loose for sure. I think he was. I don’t know what he was. I got loose. The final set of tires, started off looser than the previous set. Just kind of hanging on there at the end.”

Third place finisher, Denny Hamlin, said it’s so hard in a race that the field is so close and everyone is going the same speed.

“It’s real hard to get track position,” he says. “I think we really had a third-place car. The entire race I thought the 19 was better. The 1 obviously came on strong there at the end. It’s all we had with our FedEx Toyota.

“We gave ourselves a chance. Didn’t have quite a fast enough car to go and contend.

“I mean, the side by side is really just because both guys know whoever gets out front is going to set the pace. With everything being the same on the car, the track position means more than anything. You got to battle. We saw some great three-wide racing early on on the restarts.

Yeah, just wish I had a little more speed. That’s what we needed.”

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Ford’s Are Struggling

The Ford camp hasn’t been happy and now that another race has come and gone, they have to be somewhat embarrassed about how Nashville came and went as well. The top finisher was 11th (Brad Keselowski). The next best was 16th (Ryan Preece). Combined, they led just two laps all race, equaling the amount of wins this season. By comparison, Toyota led 167 and Chevrolet 137.

While it shouldn’t affect them too much in the fact that Ford’s struggled here in the first two years of this race (10 combined laps led prior), it should in the event that they’ve struggled on this intermediate package as well as the one on short tracks too.

Ford drivers led only 14 of 271 laps in Vegas. They led just 9 of 267 in Kansas, 9 of 295 in Darlington and now 2 of 300 in Nashville. While they did lead 201 of 400 in Charlotte and 83 of 243 in Gateway, it’s the fact that more times than not that they’re down is reason for caution.

On short tracks, Ford led just 37 of 317 laps in Phoenix – which is the site of the Championship again this November. They led only 1 of 400 laps in Richmond, 0 of 250 laps on Bristol Dirt and 8 of 400 laps in Dover.

Martinsville they did lead 296 of 400 laps and they do have that in their back pocket should they need to shine in the Round of 8 Elimination Race, but they also have to have drivers in the third round for it to make a difference and with how they’ve fared on playoff tracks thus far, the panic button should be ringing.

Darlington they finished 2-4-6-9-10 but it’s those 9 laps led and the fact that better drivers took themselves out in crashes.

Kansas they went 6-11-13 in the top 15 and led 9 laps again.

Bristol was on dirt, but no laps led is telling.

That’s the opening round.

The next round, they have to capitalize at Texas (similar to Charlotte) and Talladega to get to the third round.

On superspeedway’s, Ford drivers led 122 of 212 laps in Daytona, 221 of 260 in Atlanta and 88 of 196 in Talladega. They have the best equipment on these drafting type of tracks. Which puts a lot of pressure on the Fall trip to the 2.66-mile Alabama facility.

Then in the third round, it’s Vegas (6-9-13) and Homestead (similar to Darlington, Nashville) before Martinsville.

Ford is in the path now that do you spend resources to get better now, or do you spend it for 2024 and play to your strengths for this season at tracks you’re expected to do good at.

Nashville Has a Future, But Is It Here?

We all know that Nashville has a place on the NASCAR schedule. With talks heating up on a return to the Fairgrounds, I think this weekend’s Ally 400 showed that maybe we shouldn’t turn out back on the superspeedway just east of town.

Sunday night’s sold-out crowd was treated to a thrilling show. I feel like this race was honestly the best that this track has ever seen. For a car that’s putting on better shows on the intermediate type tracks over short tracks right now, is it better to move it over to the Fairgrounds?

I don’t think you can come to Nashville twice a year. You risk diluting the crowd at both events. I do think that most fans, me included, just assumed this stop at NSS would be a stop gap to get by with bad racing for a few years in order to get to the Fairgrounds. However, these last few years instead have shown that maybe we should think differently and maybe not look over the 1.33-mile track in Lebanon.

It put on a great show and the crowd was stellar once again. Lets not turn out back on this concrete jungle yet.

Another Winless Drought Snapped

3 of the last 7 races have seen long winless droughts ended. Martin Truex Jr’s 54-race drought ended in Dover. Ryan Blaney’s 59 race skid snapped in the Coca-Cola 600. Now, Chastain’s 42 race drought ends on Sunday.

With that said, who’s next?

Justin Haley (143 races, 86 attempts), Michael McDowell (88 races), Brad Keselowski (79 races), Aric Almirola (67 races), AJ Allmendinger (65 races, 36 attempts), Austin Cindric (52 races), Alex Bowman (50 races, 42 attempts), Chase Briscoe (49 races), Daniel Suarez (37 races), Kevin Harvick (28 races), Austin Dillon (27 races), Erik Jones (26 races), Chris Buescher (24 races), Bubba Wallace (25 races, 24 attempts) and Chase Elliott (22 races, 15 attempts) are left.

There’s 9 regular season races left and for this list of 15, they’d love to lock themselves in via win.