PHOENIX, Ariz, — Ross Chastain is coming off of the biggest week of his NASCAR career, and, yes, he’s still a little bit nervous.
After a 30-minute session with beat reporters, he grabs his stomach while strolling to the next segment of the Championship 4 Media maelstrom with his fellow contenders.
The sensation in his gut is similar to the feeling Chastain experiences before strapping into a race car—this time, it’s just three days ahead of schedule.
“There’s this eternal, constant twisting in my stomach,” Chastain said. “As soon as it’s over each time—and it usually comes in waves—I feel so lucky that I get to feel this way about driving the car on Sunday afternoon in a circle. How lucky am I that I get to feel this way? In the moment, it’s not exactly pleasant, but I love it.”
And adrenaline? That fuels the 29-year-old driver.
“I crave it,” Chastain says as his smile widens. “When life is boring and there’s not a lot going on, I crave competition. I just want to compete.”
Life has not been boring for Chastain over the No. 1 Chevrolet for Trackhouse Racing in 2022. After scoring just three top-five results in his first 114 starts, the watermelon farmer from Alva, Florida, posted three podium finishes in the first five races of the season. His first career Cup win came in the sixth race of the season. His second victory followed in Race 10.
Chastain’s aggressive nature—and success—wasn’t lost on series veterans. He had run-ins with Denny Hamlin, Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch, who coined the phrase “Chastained” after contact with the No. 1 Chevy sent him into the spin cycle at Richmond Raceway. “We were his victim this week,” Busch added after the wreck.
A run of 14 top 10s in the first 20 races came to a crashing halt at Pocono in July. Perhaps the recriminations from his peers struck a chord. When the Playoffs rolled around in September, Chastain returned to postseason form. His average finish of 2.66 in the Round of 8 cemented his position among the final four contenders.
The title-deciding race is three days away, but the execution of his last-lap, five-spot-gaining-to-advance-to-the-final-round maneuver at Martinsville Speedway is still dominating the conversation. Despite walking out to boos before the race, he united the motorsports community after transforming a video game move into reality.
“It doesn’t seem real,” Chastain said. “Sometimes I watch the clip and it doesn’t seem like it’s me in the car or even my car, probably because it’s like a blur. It just flies by everybody.”
And perhaps it’s because Chastain’s speed on the final lap was 0.864-seconds faster than Saturday’s pole-winning run of 19.709-seconds set by Kyle Larson. The video has been viewed on a variety of social media outlets by millions of fans worldwide. Chastain earned ESPN’s No. 1 spot on the network’s Top 10 Plays.
“It’s wild because in the same breath I can get excited for what we’ve accomplished and scared to death about what we’ve accomplished,” Chastain said. “It’s so cool that I’m getting to experience this. I’m so lucky and blessed to get to feel this for a race. It’s all for a race on Sunday, one afternoon.”
More important, he ignited the fire of his fellow Trackhouse warriors before the biggest battle of the year.
“There is not a person in this building right now that wouldn’t do anything Ross Chastain asked them to do right now,” said team owner Justin Marks. “Everybody is so fired up that that kid made that kind of commitment, made that kind of move and carried the company on his shoulders in that moment to get us in. It’s incredibly empowering.”
Entering the season, Marks simply wanted a chance, an opportunity. If just one car qualified for the Playoffs, his year would have been made. Neither Chastain nor teammate Daniel Suarez had ever won a race prior to this season. But Chastain breezed into the Playoffs, as did Suarez.
Although Suarez and the No. 99 team were eliminated after the Round of 12, Chastain cleared all the hurdles. Whether Trackhouse wins or loses the title, Marks views 2022 as a triumph.
“At this point, you’re sort of playing with house money because we’re beyond all of our expectations right now,” Marks said.
Chastain disagrees. While it’s quite the accomplishment for Trackhouse to be competing for championships while still in its infancy, the driver and crew are not new to the sport. Sacrifices have been made. Dues have been paid. Many of the current employees previously toiled for years under the Ganassi Racing banner with not a lot to show for their effort.
“No, there’s a lot to lose,” Chastain said. “Look, I want to compete. So to beat 35 other drivers, these three especially, I need to go put forward the best race I can. It’s not like I can just go do whatever and fire it down the corner on lap 10 and hope it sticks, hope I run two 10ths faster. That’s not going to be the way we’re going to do this. You’re not going to be successful that way.
“I want to beat these guys. At the end of the day, I just want to beat them. That’s why we’re all here, why we all love this competition. We’ve got everything we need to go beat them.
“No, it’s not just a ‘happy to be here.’ It’s a race. I’m so dang driven and competitive to beat people that it’s all I want.”
Follow Lee Spencer on Twitter @CandiceSpencer
