NASCAR CUP SERIES
MICHIGAN INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY PRESS CONF. TRANSCRIPT
AUGUST 17, 2024
Ross Chastain, Driver of the No. 1 Busch Light Peach Camaro ZL1, met with the media in advance of the NASCAR Cup Series practice and qualifying session at Michigan International Speedway.
Media Availability Quotes:
If NASCAR did not penalize Austin Dillon, would you be willing to do what he did to make the playoffs?
“I don’t know.. I think it’s a case-by-case. I never thought I would drive into the wall in fifth gear at Martinsville (Speedway), until I did it. I think that no one knows what’s going through Austin’s (Dillon) head for that scenario. So I don’t know.. I don’t have a predetermined decision on what I’m going to do. It’s just racing at the end of these races.”
With how tight the bubble is, how are you approaching the next three races and how do you feel like they set up for the No. 1 team?
“Hopefully just getting faster. I mean you look at Christopher (Buescher) and I, we’re tied in points. We have the same average finishing position. It’s funny.. I don’t feel like we’ve raced around each other a ton. Yeah, I don’t look at anything other than trying to go fast. Coming out of the break, obviously you go to Richmond (Raceway) and run up inside the top-10; drive up there from the 20s and into 11th-ish. And then to race and go on and finish fifth, that’s better than we have been for several months. So that’s the only thing we’re focused on.. executing. I missed pit road at Richmond in Stage Two on the second green flag stop. That cost us spots when we were ahead of the No. 3 at that time. I came out several seconds behind him, the No. 23 and somebody else, and I never passed them again. So minimizing those kind of mistakes.. obviously it’s a lot bigger penalty here if you miss pit road. Or if you speed.. that’s more often going to be the case here. At Richmond, I just couldn’t even turn down.. I mean I couldn’t hit the orange box, let alone get below it. So yeah, that’s the only goal for this No. 1 team and Trackhouse.. just to go faster. That’s going to solve a lot of our problems.”
Your COTA win was hard racing contact and now people are say, ‘well wait a minute, is the line murkier now’. Are you confident that even after this decision that what happened at COTA would be allowable and viewed as ‘OK’ to win a race, or are you concerned now that if you’re in that situation again and I make contact, that I might get it taken from me? Do you know where the line is?
“Obviously I feel like COTA was fine. I got moved; I covered the bottom in (turn) 16 and AJ (Allmendinger) moved me off of that line. I think the biggest mistake there was that he didn’t move me far enough. He didn’t move me up into the rocks and into the tires. So he gave me a chance to move him back and, in my opinion, if the No. 48 isn’t there, the No. 16 just goes wide in (turn) 19 and he’s a couple car lengths back coming to the checkered and we run one-two or he finishes third. Yeah, I feel like they look at all that. We’re not in those meetings. We’re not the ones deciding, but they’re human. NASCAR is a bunch of humans making decisions and they’re looking at the total body of work.”
I don’t think you have any beef with Joey (Logano) too much that I’ve seen. Obviously you and Denny (Hamlin) have had issues in the past. This system that is setup, it has rewarded this type of activity.. rough driving is part of this system to make the playoffs. You’ll do whatever. How do you fix that, and is it fixed with this ‘line’ supposedly?
“Yeah, I think it’s good to remember that the line is not written down. There’s no words; there’s no pictures and drawings of a line. For some to say that it’s clear, it’s a total body of work. It’s a culmination of decisions that we all make, and we’re all watching each other; watching and listening to the tower and they’re watching and listening to us. We’re watching our competitors. I’m going back and watching myself after an event and I continue to evolve. Yeah, it’s not clear, but I am constantly aware of what I feel like everyone is thinking. You just can’t be too far against the grain, is my opinion.”
You’ve heard people say that whenever a driver makes a move, they’re showing it as retaliation or some sort of move more directed towards one person. The rest of the garage sees it. The rest of the garage understands it and maybe then starts to judge how they view that person. When we see something like what the No. 3 car did, do you feel like there’s an effect throughout the garage, that people start to look at you differently in certain? Is that part of the fallout, I guess, of the situation?
“I think mine and Austin’s (Dillon) are different because he’s established and has been in the sport for longer than me. When my stuff, I guess in Cup, got loud I’ll call it; I was still the new guy to be competitive in Cup. I feel like the guys that were nice to me in conversation or just passing in the garage or maybe, in my opinion, just were OK with me being a Xfinity or back-in-pack Cup, maybe win a few Truck races, maybe win a few Xfinity races; but I was never going to be direct competition. When I became competition, they suddenly had extra reasons to have a problem with me. That’s my opinion, is that they were OK with me when I was just ‘Ross the watermelon farmer’.. they didn’t have to worry too much about him. Consistently I was up there and then I made some mistakes and they did too, so it was easy for them to pile on. I think Austin is way more established; obviously with the family history, he’s been raised in the sport so they knew him long before he drove. I was still the ‘new’ guy to Cup. It wasn’t a clear path for me to get here. So I just feel like we’re too different to really compare.”
With your position in points, five of the last seven Daytona races have been won by drivers who had to win to secure a playoff spot. What are the opportunities or challenges going into Daytona needing to secure a playoff position?
“It’s home for me, so the summertime race (at Daytona) is just a bright spot in my memories of going over fourth of July weekend. Being able to win a Xfinity race there in 2019 was just a bucket list, life achievement after watching those late Busch Series races back then and Cup races Saturday night. So I just have those memories. I know right where I sat in the grandstands before Daytona rising at pit-out. I just have so many memories with friends and family there; camping outside of turn one before it was a nice campground. Yeah, it doesn’t make it easier though. I know the last two years going down there, I’ve just been able to enjoy family and the experience of racing at Daytona. A lot like the 500, where I’ve learned to just enjoy it for what it is. There’s just no way around it. If we leave here and don’t have it secured, then it’s math.. you just have to know that if you finish bad, you get less points, and if you finish good in the stags and the race, then you get more points. It’s just simple math. But we’re really excited about the next three races and changing some of those stats for who’s been winning here at Michigan.”
The simple math says that there will be one more driver in on points than before NASCAR’s decision, so were you pleased with NASCAR’s decision on Austin Dillon?
“When I read it, I didn’t really have much thoughts on like the – we’re watching it all unfold. We’re listening to people; hearing who’s loud and who’s the squeaky wheel. It looks like they got some grease there, so I feel like for me – I mean yeah, it affects us, so you look at that. You look at how it resets; kind of just note it and move on. There’s still an appeal next week, so we’ll see how that plays out. It doesn’t change how I drive here because like the math says, it doesn’t really change for us much. All of us just slid one spot. If we gain a handful of points, we’ll be ahead of all of them.”
About Chevrolet
Founded in 1911 in Detroit, Chevrolet is now one of the world’s largest car brands. Chevrolet models include electric and fuel-efficient vehicles that feature engaging performance, design that makes the heart beat, passive and active safety features and easy-to-use technology, all at a value. More information on Chevrolet models can be found at www.chevrolet.com.
