HAMPTON, Ga.— Ross Chastain was completely wrapped up in the Victory Lane celebration at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Sunday night.
The driver of the No. 1 Busch Light Chevrolet was enjoying his sponsor’s product and reveling in the aftermath of the most spectacular finish ever at the 1.5-mile track—the third-closest finish in NASCAR Cup history and the closest finish among three cars in the history of motorsports.
If the No. 99 Trackhouse Racing Chevy weren’t sitting center stage, covered in confetti, it would have been easy to assume Chastain had won. He watched teammate Daniel Suarez come out on top in a three-wide battle against runner-up Ryan Blaney and third-place Kyle Busch.
“I saw Daniel up there and there were times he was really patient,” said Chastain, who finished seventh—.017-seconds behind Suarez. “I was trying to get there at the end to help him. Once we got the red flag—and it cooled off—we were all wide open, where with the sun out we were lifting and having to drive the cars more. At the end, it was just get a push from behind and hold it wide open.
“We all basically finished where we restarted in our spot. So that’s pretty wild because there was a lot that happened there, but happy for Daniel. Happy for Trackhouse.”
Considering the frenetic cadence of the race, Chastain’s description of “wild” is an understatement. Drivers started wrecking on the second lap of the Ambetter Health 400—including Suarez who sustained damage and flat tires during the first 16-car wreck. But 246 laps later, Suarez became the 14th driver to seize the point in a race that featured a record 48 lead changes for the track.
Following the 10th and final caution on Lap 250, only one driver—Martin Truex, Jr., who was running fourth, was shuffled out of the top nine positions. The top three—Suarez, Blaney and Busch—maintained their spots to the finish. The five drivers behind Truex, including Chastain, each gained a position.
After all the mayhem that saw 31 of 37 drivers involved in accidents, Trackhouse was one of only two organizations with multiple cars finishing in the top 10. Team Penske’s Blaney and Austin Cindric finished second and fourth, respectively
Suarez, 32, went winless in 2023. He had just three top fives and missed the Playoffs after finishing 10th in the Cup standings the previous year. With recent additions to the Trackhouse stable—including Cup protege Zane Smith and three-time Supercars Champion Shane van Gisbergen—speculation escalated that Suarez was on the hot seat.
Trackhouse team owner Justin Marks set the record straight following the race on Sunday. The driver/owner explained that outsiders aren’t privy to the long-term goals of race teams.
“Yes, this is a contract year for Daniel,” Marks said. “Does that mean that this is Daniel’s audition? No. It means that basically we are working on growing this company and making Trackhouse one of the powerhouse perennial championship-contending companies in this sport.
“On the hot seat? He just didn’t have the year that he wanted last year. But we know that he can get it done, and he’s a guy that can get it done. I don’t envision necessarily a situation where Daniel is not a driver for Trackhouse Racing.”
As a competitor, Marks understood he didn’t provide Suarez with the tools the driver needed to be successful last year. Marks wasn’t complacent. He recruited Matt Swiderski to replace crew chief Travis Mack, who had called the shots for Suarez over the last three seasons. In their second race together, Suarez returned to Victory Lane under Swiderski’s direction.
“I would say that it’s validation for the work that we’ve done this off-season to be able to put him in a position where he can showcase his talent,” Marks added. “We have a lot of exciting and important things happening for the future of this company, and I guess that’s what I’ll say about that.
“It’s just nice to be in the playoffs in week two.”
Chastain endured his own struggles last year. After a breakout season in 2022 where he won early and advanced to the Championship 4 for the first time in his career, the No. 1 team didn’t win until the 17th race of the year at Nashville. His top fives and top 10s fell short of the previous year. Still, the 31-year-old race won the season finale and carried that momentum into 2024.
With Suarez now victorious two races later, Trackhouse is enjoying an energy similar to when both drivers qualified for the 2022 Playoffs.
“For the entire company, it’s absolutely incredible,” Chastain said. “Daniel never wavered last year. He never stopped showing up to the shop—SIM sessions, meetings, gym sessions. He was there and he pushes me. He’s 20 pounds heavier than me all year long. We go up and down together and our weight as we kind of go up and down through the season. We go at each other to push each other.
“It’s really, really refreshing to have a a driver similar in age because we can we can tolerate the same stuff. So it’s really, really cool.
“Last year, he never blinked. I’m sure that there were times that he questioned—that I questioned my own self last year at times and he kept showing up. This is unmeasurable for what this means for 8500 Westmoreland Lane in Concord, NC.”
Nothing could make Marks happier than watching his drivers evolve and bolster each other. When he founded Trackhouse his philosophy was to build an organization where racers could thrive.
“This is one of the things that I love about what we do more than anything else is that we have a team where whenever one of our guys wins, the other guy comes to Victory Lane genuinely excited for him,” Marks said. “That’s the culture that we’re building at Trackhouse is that we’re truly a team, and we support each other, and we’re happy for each other.
“That’s the kind of thing we’re trying to do at Trackhouse because I think it makes us strong as a team. We’re in an era of the sport where…this is about the people and the culture and really trying to build a tight-knit team because we don’t have the funding and we don’t necessarily have all the engineering resources that some of the big teams do. We really have to band together and work hard together.
“That’s what brings me so much joy. That’s what brings me so much joy, because I’m trying to build a team here where everybody is pulling for everybody else, and we’re doing that.”
Follow Lee Spencer on Twitter @CandiceSpencer or email her at: [email protected].
