Ross Chastain
Ross Lee Chastain is an American professional stock car racing driver. He competes full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, driving the No. 1 Chevrolet ZL1 for Trackhouse Racing, part-time in the NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series, driving the No. 32 Chevrolet SS for Jordan Anderson Racing and No. 9 Chevrolet SS for JR Motorsports, and part-time in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, driving the No. 45 Chevrolet Silverado RST for Niece Motorsports. He is the older brother of fellow NASCAR driver Chad Chastain.
Early career
Chastain started racing at the age of twelve, his interest piqued by his father's hobby racing and other kids his age racing. His home track was Punta Gorda Speedway in Punta Gorda, Florida, at age twelve, competing in both late model and Fastruck Series events. Even those races, at tracks like Citrus County Speedway, Auburndale Speedway and DeSoto Speedway, were run on a tight budget, a theme that carried on to much of Chastain's career in the higher ranks of NASCAR. His short track career saw Chastain scoring over fifty wins in feature events, including the Limited Late Model portion of the 2011 World Series Of Asphalt Stock Car Racing at New Smyrna Speedway, winning three of eight events in the series.NASCAR
After making the move to Charlotte in mid-2011, Chastain took over the No. 66 Turn One Racing entry in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series after Justin Marks vacated the seat. His first Truck race, at Lucas Oil Raceway at Indianapolis, was his first race with live pit stops. He finished tenth in that event. Connections in the watermelon farming industry got Chastain four more races, which were marred by incidents at Bristol Motor Speedway and Kentucky Speedway. At Homestead-Miami Speedway, rain prevented the Turn One team from making the race, so the team bought an RSS Racing start and park entry and ran the full race, finishing two laps down. It was later announced that Chastain would compete for Rookie of the Year honors with SS-Green Light Racing in 2012. Driving the No. 08 truck sponsored by the National Watermelon Association and National Watermelon Promotion Board, he scored a career-best finish of seventh in the second race of the season at Martinsville Speedway. He bested his seventh place finish with a third place finish at Bristol in August.In January 2013, it was announced that Chastain would drive in fifteen Camping World Truck Series races in 2013 for Brad Keselowski Racing. At Iowa Speedway in September, Chastain won his first career Truck Series pole for the Fan Appreciation 200; he led the most laps in the race, finishing second to James Buescher as the race underwent a green-white-checkered finish. Chastain also came close to the win at the penultimate race at Phoenix, finishing second to Erik Jones after leading over sixty laps. Years later, Chastain said that he initially made the move to BKR as an attempt to get in a Team Penske ride, but that BKR and Penske did not view the situation that way.
2014–2016
Leaving BKR after the 2013 season, Chastain moved to RBR Enterprises for a part-time schedule in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series for 2014. Comments before and after the Martinsville race, as well as racing actions during the race, led the team to fire Chastain from the ride. In May, he made his debut in the Nationwide Series at Charlotte Motor Speedway, driving the No. 55 for Viva Motorsports. Chastain later drove for Hattori Racing Enterprises at Michigan International Speedway, replacing Johnny Sauter. If that opportunity did not arise, Chastain was set to replace another driver that weekend, John Wes Townley in the No. 5 Wauters Motorsports truck at Gateway Motorsports Park. In the race with HRE, Chastain finished twelfth, which was to that point the team's best finish in NASCAR competition. The finish eventually turned into more sporadic appearances with HRE throughout the rest of the season. Chastain also joined the team for a part-time NASCAR K&N Pro Series East effort that year.He then joined JD Motorsports in 2015, replacing Jeffrey Earnhardt. The opportunity emerged after Chastain raced with TriStar Motorsports at the end of the 2014 season. His car was comparable to the performance of the JDM cars, which led to a deal in the offseason. Chastain logged four top-tens on the year, ninth in the season-opening PowerShares QQQ 300, tenth at the other Daytona race, tenth at Iowa, and tenth at Darlington, and got into an altercation with Ryan Reed after a race at Richmond International Raceway. Reed claimed Chastain made too much contact on late restarts and vowed payback, while Chastain simply brushed the incident off as a difference of opinions in short-track racing.
2017
Chastain's 2017 Xfinity season was the best of his career, scoring a top-five at Iowa and two top tens as well as finishing thirteenth in points, the highest of the non-playoff drivers. He achieved this after a tight points battle with J. J. Yeley for the spot in the last four races of the season. In the second half of the season, Chastain rarely finished outside the top twenty and mainly finished in the mid-teens.The season was marred by two fights with fellow Xfinity drivers, one with Jeremy Clements at Bristol after Clements confronted him and one with Brendan Gaughan at Texas after heated on-track competition. Chastain, Gaughan, and crew members from both teams brawled behind Victory Lane after the night race. A crew member from JD Motorsports, teammate Garrett Smithley, was taken to the hospital with a head injury after the fight. Chastain blamed the confrontation on Gaughan, saying the Richard Childress Racing driver attacked him, but also acknowledged that he races hard and does not play favorites. Gaughan initially avoided discussing the incident with reporters but later boasted about the incident on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio and said that he received several text messages from fellow drivers who were happy about the incident. He did admit that he could've handled the situation later, but didn't care about it. That opinion was likely influenced by the fact that 2017 was Gaughan's final Xfinity season, as any retaliation had to happen within the next two races.
In 2017, Chastain joined Premium Motorsports' No. 15 car for his Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series debut in the AAA 400 Drive for Autism at Dover, an opportunity he initially resisted after being informed of the opportunity by Xfinity team owner Johnny Davis. he finished twentieth. Chastain heard from various sources that his driving style made multiple drivers mad on-track, but Chastain says it doesn't bother him. He also drove the No. 15 at the fall Dover race, finishing 38th. Chastain was originally on the entry list to drive the No. 7 car, the second car for Premium Motorsports, at the Cup series season finale at Homestead, but the team withdrew.
2018
In late September 2017, Chastain announced that he would return to JD Motorsports for a fourth year, running the entire 2018 NASCAR Xfinity Series season, as well as hinting at another part-time Cup schedule with Premium Motorsports. He started off the Xfinity season with a top-ten at Daytona International Speedway, and ran his first Cup race of 2018 the week after at Atlanta Motor Speedway. By the Easter off weekend, Chastain had expanded his Cup schedule, which had included every race since Atlanta, to all of the race weekends where the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series and NASCAR Xfinity Series run at the same track. Chastain also returned to the truck series at Iowa on an off week for the Cup Series and a companion race with the Xfinity Series, driving the No. 50 truck for Beaver Motorsports. He continued to run most of the Cup schedule, running the entirety of the summer schedule save for the Sonoma Raceway event, where Justin Marks drove. Chastain tied his career-best Xfinity Series finish at Iowa Speedway, avoiding last-lap chaos to bring home another fourth-place finish. At the Xfinity Series race at Mid-Ohio, Chastain and Joey Gase made contact multiple times on the final lap, eventually leading Gase to spin off track. On pit road after the race, Gase swerved his car toward Chastain with spectators and crew members in the vicinity. The two later had a shouting match and Gase was tackled by one of Chastain's crew members. After a trip to the NASCAR hauler, Gase called Chastain a "golden boy" and threatened to derail Chastain's playoff hopes. Chastain hopped in the Premium Motorsports No. 15 truck for the World of Westgate 200 and finished seventh, Premium's best-ever finish across all three NASCAR national series.On the strength of a summer performance that saw him hold down the final Xfinity Series playoff spot, Chastain and Chip Ganassi Racing announced a three-race agreement for Chastain to pilot the organization's No. 42 entry for races at Darlington Raceway, Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Richmond Raceway. The races came at the expense of John Hunter Nemechek, who could not sell sponsorship for the races. DC Solar was announced as a backer for Chastain's effort. Chastain had previously met the CEO of DC Solar at Auto Club Speedway in 2018, and plans materialized from there. For the first race of the trio, Chastain held top-ten spots in both practices, finishing second in first practice. He later claimed the pole over Christopher Bell, and during the race won the first two stages. During the third stage, Chastain was battling for the race lead with Kevin Harvick with thirty-five laps to go. Through turns one and two of the traditionally one-groove Darlington track, the lapped car of Chad Finchum took the top-groove racing lane, leaving Harvick and Chastain jostling for positions in the bottom lanes. After clearing Finchum, Harvick slid up into Chastain who then slid up into the wall. On the backstretch, Chastain hooked Harvick's machine into the outside wall, ending Harvick's day. Harvick later parked in Chastain's pit stall before giving a heated post-race interview calling Chastain "inexperienced" and saying that Chastain will "never get to drive many of them again. Chip Ganassi then responded on Twitter, defending Chastain's performance and stating that he "helped himself to many future opportunities"." Chastain, for his part, finished 25th after repairs and called running up front "cool" and also saying "I don't care what Harvick says."
After running a race with JD Motorsports at Indianapolis, Chastain returned to CGR for the DC Solar 300 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. He once again performed well throughout the weekend, securing the second-fastest time in final practice and the fifth starting spot for the race. Once again the class of the field, Chastain led all but twenty of the 200 laps in the race and prevailed over Justin Allgaier for the victory, his first in over 200 starts in NASCAR. True to his roots, Chastain smashed a watermelon on the track as a final victory celebration. In a post-race media conference, he admitted to getting emotional in the closing laps of the race due to the gravity of the win. With the win, a playoff berth was wrapped up, the first of his career. Chastain also revealed that he was not being paid to drive the car, something that he claimed was reason for ridicule within the sport. Chastain fell out of the playoffs after the opening round after Matt Tifft made a late-race rally at Dover, claiming the final spot by three points.
Towards the latter part of the 2018 season, Chastain joined Niece Motorsports for some NASCAR Camping World Truck Series races. Although some were surprised at how well Chastain ran in those races, Chastain instead said that the organization was better than the community gave it credit for.