NASCAR CUP SERIES
PHOENIX RACEWAY
SHRINERS CHILDREN’S 500
TEAM CHEVY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
MARCH 9, 2024
ROSS CHASTAIN, NO. 1 KUBOTA CAMARO ZL1, met with the media in advance of the NASCAR Cup Series’ qualifying session at Phoenix Raceway.
Media Availability Quotes:
YESTERDAY, YOU WERE REALLY STRONG ON THE LONG RUN IN PRACTICE. WITH IT BEING A LITTLE WARMER AND A LITTLE WINDY, ARE YOU CONCERNED ABOUT YOUR SHORT RUN SPEED IN QUALIFYING, OR ARE YOU GUYS FOCUSED ON THE LONG RUN TOMORROW?
“Just focused on getting grip. We really struggled yesterday just finding balance. I couldn’t believe that we were 15th on fast lap averages. We were 12th early on and my crew chief, Phil Surgen, said ‘you’re 12th’.. and I was like, ‘wow.. I feel like I’m 35th’. I just did not feel like I had the grip in the car.
It’s a little bit tough though because we’re coming off the win here last year, so I feel like a lot of my memories are of the really good laps; the laps we were driving away from the field and when we were passing people. And as I really dug back into it last night, there were a lot of times where I saw a lot of erratic steering and heavy braking from my driving traces from last fall. So it wasn’t as good as I remembered. I had the whole offseason to think back through and dream about all the good that happened, but there were some bad. There were some moments where I wasn’t happy with the car last fall.
We didn’t fall-off as much as some people, but we were just too tight. We were way too tight coming here. We were sliding the front tires a lot. We made a lot of changes in practice and after, which has not been the norm for the No. 1 car. You see it.. we’re normally pretty spot-on. We went to work. We made a lot of changes before we had to get into the tech line.”
LAST WEEK AFTER THE RACE, YOU TALKED ABOUT THE SPEEDING PENALTIES. BUT I WONDERED.. IS IT ESPECIALLY FRUSTRATING BECAUSE OF HOW WELL, IN GENERAL, YOU GUYS SEEM TO HAVE STARTED THE SEASON, AS FAR AS SPEED, AND THERE’S A LOT OF POTENTIAL TO HAVE BEEN EVEN BETTER IN THE FIRST THREE RACES?
“Yes, sir. If I was back in my days of Premium Motorsports and going to run 27th on a good day, and I sped and it made us finish 29th… it was like, well OK. Or even if we would get back there, but I knew it took us out of it by just not doing my job, it was hard then.. but looking back, easier. Now, when we have cars capable of winning.. I watched the race back post-Las Vegas and I’m like, it doesn’t look like a race-winning car. But in the car, I felt like it was a race-winning capable car to fight with the No. 5 (Kyle Larson) and the No. 45 (Tyler Reddick). That’s why my human emotion takes over and I can’t get out of my own way of saying anything, but I was just so sad that I took us out of a shot.
We got back up there, but if we would have been up there with the No. 45.. when I sped, I was five car lengths in front of the No. 45 on pit road. We were racing with him and I felt equal to him. I just wanted a shot to continue to make adjustments on my car up front. Continue to have four tires on it.. the two tire call was great and it was a great Band-Aid. When we look back, I might not even remember the speeding penalty. Most people won’t, but I know I will. But yeah, just the speed of the car and the feel.. like it goes fast and it was driving so good that I could hustle it. That’s what makes it tough.
And then I get out and I’m human – I look back at my interviews and I should be more positive. I should be thinking about a lot more things than just that one moment that I sped by .6 mph or something, and I just can’t get past it because it’s such an unforced error that, at this level and doing it three weeks in a row, it just builds up and I just kind of lost my mind there when I realized I had done it again.”
WITH WHAT YOU TALKED ABOUT IN TERMS OF SPEEDING – IN ONE SENSE, THERE’S A LOT OF ELEMENTS THAT CAN GO INTO IT, BUT AT THE END OF THE DAY, WHAT HAS TO BE DONE OR HOW DO YOU GET TO THE POINT WHERE YOU’RE YOU ARE REACHING 10-TENTHS BUT NOT OVER THAT LINE? I KNOW YOU CAN ‘DON’T SPEED’, BUT WHAT GOES INTO THAT PROCESS OF WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO, WHAT YOU HAVE TO WORK WITH THE TEAM OR WHAT YOU HAVE TO THINK ABOUT?
“Yeah, each one of our speeding issues have been a little bit different..”
HOW SO?
“Well, like Atlanta (Motor Speedway), it was going from the transition from the 90 mph zone to the frontstretch. I sped, locked the left-front up and slid into that first section. And then I also sped leaving because I stalled it and I freaked out, and when I got it fired up, I went way past my lights. I was just realizing how much time I had lost and I was going to lose the draft, so I sped like 3 mph.. that’s like unheard of. So that stemmed from hitting the No. 6 (Brad Keselowski) on-track. We had slammed side-to-side, so I had pitted without telling my crew. It just spiraled out of control. There were like 90 seconds where my mind and the car just kind of went haywire. I felt like I couldn’t function because we hit and I thought I was going to blow a left-front tire.
Then you go to Las Vegas (Motor Speedway) – you slow down in the banking and then turn down into the apron. Well I went really slow.. I went six-tenths, like you’re talking about. I wasn’t trying to be 10-tenths, and then I turn on the apron; I’m slow and I just released the brake to just roll up to the line. I thought I was too slow, and then when I went back to the pedal to slow down, I realized I was too close to the yellow line. So it really came from a fact of laziness, in my mind, at Las Vegas.. where I wasn’t trying to be aggressive. I was trying to be the opposite. And in the laziness, I just let off the pedals and I let off too long.
Yeah, when the intention is to go slow and I still speed, that’s where my frustration came from; in the car and in the moment. And then there’s dejection after of just – OK, I know what my intention was.. it was very clear. I know what my mind was trying to do, and then in the moment, I don’t execute on what I’m intending to do. So it’s one thing to push to the lights and know that they’re right on the limit; it just rolls a little faster and it’s .01 faster. It’s another thing to intentionally be slow and still get popped because I was lazy with the pedals. That’s what honestly got me so upset.
But what’s so cool is that – yeah, I took the flight home and thought about it.. Monday morning, for sure. I watched the race back first thing Monday and walked away from it. And honestly my team got me and my guys were just like – Look, we’re not slowing down.. we don’t need you to be slow like you were at Vegas on the approach to pit road. We need you to go back to the Ross that wins the award. Like there are metrics that the whole garage measures pit road entry, from turn three to the yellow line. I’ve won that a lot. It doesn’t pay anything, but I’ve won it in Premium Motorsports cars. I’ve won it with different teams I’ve worked with. It’s something I’ve really focused on because it’s something I could win and I’m a competitor. And then now, I tried to back it down and I still got caught. It was cool to hear the guys and to truly change my mindset mid-way through Monday like – no, we’re not backing down from a yellow line.. that’s not going to scare us.”
WHEN YOU REFERENCE LAST FALL’S RACE – I THINK IT WAS THE FIRST SEGMENT, YOU WENT FROM EIGHTH TO THIRD. OBVIOUSLY YOU WERE UP THERE AND ABLE TO MAKE PASSES AND GET TO THE LEAD LATER ON. YOU WERE ABLE TO DO WHAT, IN ESSENCE, THIS PACKAGE THIS WEEKEND IS SUPPOSED TO ALLOW YOU GUYS TO HAVE A GREAT SENSE OF. CAN YOU GIVE ME A SENSE OF WHAT YOU WERE ABLE TO DO SO WELL LAST FALL HERE BECAUSE YOU SEEMED TO MOVE UP BETTER THAN ANYBODY ELSE. IT SOUNDS LIKE THE CHANGES ARE GOING TO BE VERY MINOR AND IT’S GOING TO BE ABOUT THE SAME TYPE OF RACE.
“Yeah, I felt like early on in that first run, I was able to maintain around eighth. I think I had to fight off maybe the No. 43 (Erik Jones) first lap, and then we kind of settled in and I just maintained. As we all gapped ourselves just naturally, the leader is going to pull away the first five laps, and second through 40th is going to just have gaps. My gap just stayed the same. And then I saw the guy in seventh – he slipped his right-rear and then he got tight off of (turn) four and all these little moments. I’m like – oh mines not doing that, so I was able to just maintain early. And then we just had a very nice, balanced car, so we were wearing the tires evenly. We weren’t over-heating one corner versus the others. Mine definitely handled worse on lap 50 than it did on lap five, but I was able to as simple as maintain early, and then I made most of my passes at the ends of the runs. That’s just a sign of good balance and good mechanical grip. Air aside, as you wear these tires.. if you can wear them evenly and your balance was OK to start, I was able to go as old school as old school can get; pass them on the long run.”
NO MIC.
“I have no idea. I’ve only got a little bit of practice on it, so I just don’t know. I’ll go react in the race. I don’t go in with any preconceived ideas. A lot of drivers do and more power to them that they believe they know what’s going to happen before the race starts. I’m like, I’m going to drive it into turn one and find out. I’m going to find out with everybody else, and then it’s up to me and where I feel like I’m strong, which is reacting instantly and catching the car when it reacts different than what I thought. Of course if it handled perfect, I would be wide-open in fifth gear all the way around here, but that’s not the case.”
WHAT IN YEAR’S PAST HAVE YOU BEEN ABLE TO TAKE FROM THE SPRING RACE AND APPLY IT TO THE CHAMPIONSHIP RACE? WITH THE DEBUT OF THIS RULES PACKAGE, WHAT CAN YOU TAKE FROM THE SPRING AND APPLY IT TO THE FALL?
“Previously, by the time we’d get to the fall, I knew where I was at in points. So when I was driving the No. 4 car that’s on the screen right now, we knew if we needed to buy tires or not. We knew if we needed to finish a couple spots ahead, or if we could finish worse and it didn’t matter because we were going to get paid the same. We lost a little purse money, but it wasn’t enough to off-set the cost of four sets of tires. It’s pretty wild to think back to that and with Dawson (Cram) here, that’s cool to think that’s where I was at one point.
Now, that’s up to Chevrolet and Trackhouse Racing to think about.. what’s the difference between spring and fall. Like I was talking about in the last question, like I just react.. I react to the simulator. I react to the at-track. Yeah, we have some ideas of what we think and we want to learn from our past.. we’re not blind to it. But I don’t think – oh, it’s going to be tighter in the fall, looser or it’s going to be this – when we’re changing the packages. We’re changing the cars. This car is evolving, so I don’t believe it’s going to be something because I’ve done that in the past and it didn’t really work out for me. I just react and I let my smart people around me – I’ve surrounded myself with the smartest people in the garage, both at Trackhouse and Chevrolet, and let them think about that. I’ll react in the car when I drive into turn three.”
IN SEVEN STARTS AT BRISTOL MOTOR SPEEDWAY, YOU HAVE JUST ONE TOP-10 FINISH. WHAT IS IT ABOUT THAT PLACE THAT YOU FIND SO CHALLENGING?
“Driving across a mountain and going into Bristol, Tennessee (laughs). Just when I get there, I have struggled a lot. I had one truck and one Xfinity car that I thought I could win at in all my starts there. Bristol (Motor Speedway) was my second-ever race in the sport in 2011 – I crashed in practice; I was the slowest in qualifying in a backup car and I ran into everything during the race. It was terrible.
Yeah, if I knew, I would fix it. I just haven’t been able to make speed. My teammates are generally faster than me there, and I know that. I’ve studied Daniel (Suarez) a lot, just looking through his stuff. We’ve had completely equally-built, same setup cars at Bristol and he outran me. As a teammate, I’m happy for him, but I want to beat him. And neither one of us ran great. Obviously I have a lot of laps around there. I remember when I went there for the first time, I was supposed to have just ran the one race in 2011 in a truck, and that was going to be it.. a bucket-list race. But it went good and we finished 10th, so we found a way to fund a few more. We went to Bristol for the second race. I remember being on top of the world – this NASCAR stuff is not as hard as I thought, but boy, Bristol kicked my butt that Wednesday night. That’s back when we raced Wednesday night.
Yeah, I have those memories of the bad and the good. Why I can’t make as much speed, I don’t know.”
About Chevrolet
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