With a little bit of luck and maybe if Austin Hill had run out of gas, Ross Chastain would have been an upset tonight for the small funded Niece Motorsports team at Daytona International Speedway.
However, Chastain had to settle for a third-place finish in the NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series NextEra Energy 250 .
“We didn’t qualify where we wanted too,” Chastain said to MRN Radio. “Just played it safe and we did all right, I did get in that one wreck there in (Turn) 3. That was my fault for spinning out. The truck held up and had plenty of speed at the end, and tried to push Grant (Enfinger), just wanted to give him a shot.”
“I didn’t feel like I had a shot from third, so just tried to bump draft him up there and the move didn’t quite work out.”
Another driver that could have been an upset in the race tonight was Spencer Boyd making his first Truck Series start at Daytona.
“This is something you dream of forever,” Boyd told MRN Radio. “You just always ask for that shot. Put me in a good truck, give me the opportunity to be up front. There was a big wreck there at the end, we knocked the nose in and it was unfortunate and once I got out to second, it was like a parachute. It was going to be tough. I needed to be tucked up behind someone.”
“I was behind Matt Crafton all night and took a lot of notes. Just to come away with a top five, first race of the year, being new to the trucks, being new to Young’s Motorsports is just a dream come true for me.”
