NASCAR CUP SERIES
NASHVILLE SUPERSPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUOTES
MAY 31, 2025
Ross Chastain, driver of the No. 1 Busch Country Camaro ZL1 for Trackhouse Racing and the No. 9 Acceptance Insurance Camaro SS for JR Motorsports, met with the media in advance of running double duty in the NASCAR Cup and Xfinity Series at Nashville Superspeedway.
Media Availability Quotes:
You mentioned last week how much the Truck race helped you for the Coca-Cola 600. What are you hoping to learn from running the Xfinity car later tonight?
“Yeah, I was wishing I was in the truck last night. Watching those guys rip around looked fun.
But yeah, just laps. After the week we just had, I just want to get in a race car. This afternoon is going to be really good just to make laps and learn the Xfinity car again on this track. This is a humbling sport, though, so we put ourselves at a lot of high risk getting back on track. The success could be hard again — like the cars don’t know what happened last week, so I’m ready to get on track and start working through the process. I expect it to take me a little bit of time to get up to speed in the Xfinity car. And yeah, it’ll be a good afternoon, I hope.”
Did you bring two watermelons this week?
“We did, yes. JRM and Trackhouse both brought watermelons.
What’s so cool is the teams really have bought into that… into having the watermelons and getting them. Whether it’s truck drivers or whoever’s buying groceries for the hauler, yes, they’ve got watermelons in each of them.”
Ross, talk about your week and the win at the Coca-Cola 600 on Sunday. Of course, all the media responsibilities heading into this week, including being here in your hometown for your race team in Nashville. Just talk about your week and just how busy it’s been leading into this weekend’s race.
“Yeah, we celebrated. We took Sunday night, took our sweet time in Victory Lane and just really soaked it in.
It’s so rewarding when you get there because it’s so hard to accomplish it, and to do it at the Coca-Cola 600 was just something that I wanted to just enjoy. Then we stayed up all night and they took me out at the Charlotte Airport in the morning and sent me off to Milwaukee. We already had an appearance booked for the Moose. So I got up there and just to see their excitement — they were celebrating from the night before and we had a good time with them Monday and Tuesday. Then caught a flight back and got to celebrate with the team Tuesday afternoon. Part of Tuesday and Wednesday was all about prep for here, and then I was off Wednesday night back here to Nashville to start appearances Thursday morning and I’ve been here ever since.
I’m really excited. I’m really ready to get in the race car. It’s been a lot of talking about what happened, but this sport moves on every seven days. It’s time to get going again.”
You started 40th last week and worked your way to the front. Did you learn anything? In a car that some people say is hard to pass, did you learn anything that you can use it for the rest of the season, as well?
“Just that patience paid off. There were times where I almost got in the wall, but I lifted. There were times where I almost got to someone’s outside or almost cleared them off the corner and lifted. In a 600-mile race, that allows you to do that. These races are a lot shorter this weekend, though.”
What do you need to feel and see Saturday’s moving forward? What’s been the thing that’s missing to not allow you to get closer to the front to start off races?
“Speed. You saw in practice last week for group two. We were right there with the No. 24 for the fast lap in our group. It’s expected. We expect it to be slower than the first group. But just lap after lap, we just kept hammering lap times. We were really, really good.
But yeah, it just comes down to lap time. The sport rewards speed and how fast can you start and finish the lap from the starting point and getting it done. It’s a real simple reward system. You go fast, you get a lot of cool things. And the lap time came with the balance of the car last week. So for that practice at Charlotte in the Cup car, the balance stayed good. I asked my team to just build the car the same because I didn’t need any changes. Usually you want to migrate the balance a little. You want to tighten up just a little bit on corner entry, a little bit on exit. But I was just like just build it the same, and we will be really good. And we’ll adjust in the race, but I didn’t have any — that’s probably the first time, definitely in my Cup career, that I’ve ever gotten out of a practice session and didn’t ask for anything. And that’s why I was so full of a smile all Saturday as they were building the next car. I knew if they could replicate that, we’d have a real shot. So the lap time comes with the balance.”
This starts the second-half of the regular season. Six of the last 13 races in the regular-season are either a road course or drafting track. So there’s four road courses left, two drafting tracks left. How much can that change things, upset the apple cart, or what kind of impact might that have?
“That’s a good question. I think that’s what’s so great about our sport and live sports in general is we just don’t know what’s going to happen or what’s next. You start seeing glimpses of people gaining on it. Just to figure out how to work through a road course race strategy-wise, staying on track, staying out of the barriers and who can do it. You’ve seen it with all different cars. They show up at some road courses some years and they’re just the fastest. We’ve had it where I feel like I’m the best road course racer in the sport, and then I go to the next road course and I’m 18th or 28th and can’t make lap time. So no idea how it’s going to go… I think that’s why you’ve got to tune in.”
You’ve been pretty consistent that a fast car goes fast and that makes you look good or makes you look bad if you don’t have it. But I want to try to push back a little bit on that because here you’ve gone second, fifth, first, and could have won last year before the incident. Something’s got to be working for you here that’s more than just a car… is that the case? Why does this track fit you so well?
“My crew chief’s name is Phil Surgen and I drive for Trackhouse Racing. Our group was together at Ganassi from the No. 42 and moved into the No 1.
But yeah, I don’t know. We haven’t been fast across the whole weekend every time. We’ve had to work at it. I just push on my guys. They give me the stuff to go do it. You saw it last week — I rolled out of practice and I ran the top coming to the green at Charlotte. I would have done that no matter how my car felt. But if it felt bad as I entered the corner, I would have slowed down. And when I came off (turn) four to start the practice at speed to start my first time lap, I was like — oh my gosh, that was good… I’m going to try that again. Then I ran one and two on the top and worked my way up a little, but feet, not car width. It’s not tens of feet.
If the feel in the car is right, as a race car driver, I’ve learned through my Cup races and Xfinity and Truck because they’re on the same tracks. Cars and trucks drive a little different in each one, but there is a feel that I want, but it also has to line up with lap time. I’ve had cars that felt good and you’re two-tenths off and it’s like, I don’t know. The lap time is there. Sometimes they have to drive worse to go faster. Right now in Cup, for us, if it drives good, we do go fast.
At Nashville, I don’t know. I don’t feel like I do anything different. I don’t compare here any different. But we’ve had really, really good race cars.”
To keep building on the speed from Saturday of last weekend, was there something different? Did you guys do anything different of why you showed up Saturday last weekend and it was so much better and exactly what you wanted? Is that something you guys can learn from to bring to here and going forward?
“No, it wasn’t like we were in some different shock package or springs or attitude in the car geometry. There was a test there. I don’t remember exactly how they called it — it was not an organizational test, it was either like an OEM. It was like Chevy had a car there, each OEM had one, and then the Wheel Force car went back after and did their own data capture for each OEM. So I know that my group dug into that; looked at all the squiggly lines and picked out the best. But we would have done that any time. When you have a test as close to the race… it was not that far before the race, I know when I was listening as we got closer to the race, my group talked about – oh we see this in the test data that we like. Oh, we see this and we don’t like that. We don’t like this. We like that. And they just kept pulling all the crumbs out and eventually they had the whole piece of what they wanted.
But yeah, it wasn’t like we ran this magical spring or anything of geometry. It was just a lot of digging through all that data, and they came up with something really good. And the No. 24 was the one that did the test, so as I’m running him down at the end, I thought, how am I going to pass the guy that did the test and captured all the information, all the data, and now how am I going to go past him when he’s blocking me like that? So it was really rewarding when it happened.”
You’re still wearing your ring from last weekend. Does somebody have to be in charge of it when you’re in the car, and then it goes back on when you get out of the car? How is this going to work now? “Lauren Emling is going to take it when I get in the car. We’ve already talked about it because we did lose my cool shirt last week in the chaos of the post-race. I had it on for all victory lane, and then we went over to the Prime desk, and I took it off where when we did the cheers down there with Dale (Earnhardt Jr.), Carl (Edwards), Cory LaJoie, Danielle (Trotta) and Justin (Marks). I took it off right before I went on air, and then it’s gone. It might still show up, but it’s somewhere. I don’t understand how. It’s a very unique shirt with hoses on it. It seems like somebody knows where it’s at, but we haven’t found it. So I know we left it. It was our fault. But yes, Lauren’s going to take it. I think once I get in this Xfinity car for practice, that’s going to be it. I’m good. But I wanted to wear it all the way until I got in the car next. I take it off to wash my hands, that’s about it.”
How much motivation is wearing the ring? Because, I mean, clearly you had it on Sunday in Victory Lane and had it on ever since. When you look down at that, it’s your milestone win of your career, so far. Do you use that for energy?
“Yes, absolutely. I do. We have a ‘first win’ ring that we had made at Trackhouse from COTA. Matt Kaulig had win rings made from Daytona in the Xfinity series and now this one. It’s a pretty cool collection. I’m not a big ring guy. I’m not a jewelry guy. But these just have so much meaning in it. It says ‘Champion’ and it says ‘Coca-Cola 600 2025’. It had the SMI logo right front and center. That car and that red and blue logo for SMI is so iconic, something that I remember as a kid seeing and I didn’t know what it was. And now to have it front and center on the ring of what SMI and the Smith family have built the Coca-Cola 600 into is incredible.
So yeah, definitely going to take it off now for practice. But it has been motivation this week because this week was a grind. And sometimes I just had to touch the ring and be like — okay, smile, go to the next thing, make the next flight, get home, like all the stuff.
So yeah, very, very worthwhile. And the ring is a very special part of it, as well as the trophy, which I can’t even pick the dang thing up… it’s too heavy.”
I’m sure you’ve seen the comments from Justin Marks about doing the double and how it benefits both NASCAR and INDYCAR. I’m curious if you have ever had a conversation with him potentially doing it one day and if not, how do you guys make something like that happen?
“No conversations… I wouldn’t even know where to begin. It was cool to see Trackhouse enter into the Rolex 24 this year. It was cool to root my teammates on, and that would be something one day. But with INDYCAR, it’s just so far off my radar that I wouldn’t even know where to begin. Somebody else would have to start that conversation internally with us. I drive Justin Marks’ No. 1 winning Cup car in the Coca-Cola 600 It’s got a pretty good ring to it. We’ll stick with that for now.”
Last year you ran the Battle of Broadway 150 at the Nashville Fairgrounds, and I heard you tell people there on Thursday that you were interested in running it again this year. Is there any reason why things didn’t work out to run it this year, and would you like to run it again in the future?
“Yeah, I’d love to. I love what Bob Sargent does, and that’s a really cool thing. It just costs a lot of money. Last year, Tootsies sponsored us to do it, and that was just a big lift for all of us and them. Steve Smith and the Tootsies group is very supportive of the Nashville Fairgrounds, and they want that to succeed. He grew up a couple blocks from there, right down the road.
I want to support it. I want to be a part of short-track racing. But this week or just this year leading into it, it just didn’t really make sense. And, yeah, there’s no real reason. It just didn’t work out. I want to do it again, but it takes a lot of effort. Those aren’t easy programs to put together, and it costs a lot of money. I know it sounds silly for me to say it sitting here after winning the Coca-Cola 600, but just late model racing, any racing is expensive, and a lot goes into it. Putting the time in to prep just wasn’t in the cards this year.”
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