NASCAR CUP SERIES
2025 PLAYOFF MEDIA DAY
TEAM CHEVY DRIVER QUOTES
AUGUST 27, 2025
Ross Chastain, driver of the No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet, met with the media in advance of the start of the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.
Media Availability Quotes:
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE TEAM’S STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES?
“I’ll start with the weakness, because it’s the easiest one. It’s just, are we going to be fast? Are we going to roll off the truck fast for practice at Darlington, and are we going to be able to stay fast on lap10 of that run, lap 20, lap 30, and transfer that through into qualifying for one lap, and then back to long run for the race? That’s the ultimate question for Trackhouse, in my mind is, can we go fast? And if we can do that, can we execute? We can call strategy right. We’ll miss calls. All the little things, I think we can do really well, but it’s holding ourselves accountable to keep doing them well. I don’t just rest on what we’ve done, but you need to make sure we do the little things right.”
GOING OFF WITH THAT, DO YOU THINK YOU GUYS FOUND SOMETHING IN THE RECENT ENTIRE TEST AT NEW HAMPSHIRE?
“We found a lot of data. I can’t even imagine how much stuff they downloaded off that car over the course of more than 700 laps. I got to explore as a driver, I got through in all different feelings of Goodyear tires, and I know kind of what they’re going to settle on. So, yeah, learned a lot. Whether we can put that into action into speed, on race weekend, is to be determined.”
DO YOU THINK THAT DATA CAN TRANSFER OVER TO OTHER TRACKS?
“I don’t really know to be honest, I don’t understand how that works. I know what I need to go faster, feeling out of the car, but I’m not the one assembling them, bolting them together, making decisions for springs and shocks and geometry. I don’t know.”
CAN YOU TAKE ME BACK TO YOUR CUP DEBUT OR WHATEVER EARLY IN YOUR CAREER, THAT YOU WERE RACING AROUND SOMEBODY THAT WAS SOMEBODY YOU’D LOOKED UP TO AND IT WAS A SPECIAL MOMENT”
“I did. It was 2017 spring Dover, racing for Premium Motorsports, and partway through the race we were a lap down, and they were telling me just ride around the back. We’d put tires on, but they wanted me to just wait on the next caution or something. And I said, ‘the free pass is right in front of us’. And they’re like, ‘oh, yeah, go see if you can pass them’. And I went past Paul Menard for the free pass and got my lap back. We had better tires, but that kept us in a higher spot, and I think we finished 20th or 18th or something that day. So, passing him for the free pass was a big deal that stood out, and then racing around Dale Jr.”
MAYBE SOMEDAY, A NEW KID MAY BE RACING WITH YOU AND THE WAY THAT YOU FELT ABOUT DALE JR., THEY MAY FEEL THAT WAY ABOUT YOU.
“I hope they do. It means I’m doing something right. That means that I’m around for a long time, so I plan on this being still the early part of my career and being here for a long time.”
ANY BUSINESS OR JOB OR SPORT CAN BE A GRIND. THERE’S GOOD THINGS AND BAD THINGS ABOUT THAT. BUT WHEN YOU WANT TO BE THE ONE OUTWORK TO OUT GRIND, HOW CHALLENGING IS THAT, OBVIOUSLY NOT EVERYBODY NEEDS THAT CHALLENGE, SO HOW DO YOU KEEP YOURSELF GRINDING, BECAUSE THIS IS A TOUGH GAME?
“It’s not as tough as farming. I promise you that. There’s a lot of tougher jobs out there. This is not. I mean, this is not that difficult. If you show up and can go fast, and then do all the work off the track, you keep everybody happy, and do what is expected. Our farm name is JDI. It stands for just do it. It’s my dad’s life motto, and he has said it my whole life. And anytime anybody that works at the farm ever has a reason why they’re not going to do something, he says, just do it. There doesn’t have to be any more reason than that. He’s boss, the owner, so he gets to say that. And that’s my mentality for when I wake up every day if I question, ‘oh, I don’t know, I want to stay in bed today or I want to sleep in’. Alarm’s going off, get up, go do it.”
WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST STRENGTH AND YOUR BIGGEST WEAKNESS ENTERING THE FINALS?
“The weakness is the question of, can we go fast? It is a simple question, and a really tough one to answer until we get on track, starting at Darlington. Then carrying it through week after week through these rounds. The best part, the biggest thing we good at is the little things and executing through the weekend and making the most out of our race on Sunday. We’re confident in that I’m going to continue to push that and not rest on what we’ve done in the past.”
WINNING CHARLOTTE IN MAY, WINNING THE COKE 600, WHERE DO YOU FEEL THAT YOU AND THE TEAM ARE AT RIGHT NOW COMPARED TO A COUPLE MONTHS AGO?
“We have the potential to pull on track at Darlington and have the same level of group that we had that Saturday. I felt it into the first corner, off pit road in practice and rolled down in turn three, and when I came off turn four, I felt right away that the car had grip and then it was up to me to go make lap time. If we have that feeling at Darlington and that balance in the car, it’s going to be a fun weekend.”
AFTER YOU WON AT CHARLOTTE, AND GOT IN (THE PLAYOFFS) DID YOU SAY I’M GOOD, I JUST HAVE TO JUST KEEP RACING AND GETTING BETTER AND YOU KNOW, ADD MORE PLAYOFF POINTS?
“Well, I’m not going to “hail melon” it, we know that. From there, it’s just a whole body of work, and go fast and get the points, it’s just that. It’s just every position’s a point, stage points, winning fixes everything in each round. So how fast can we go? That’s the big question.”
SHANE VAN GISBERGEN IS ONE OF THOSE QUESTION MARKS, AND HE WAS JUST SAYING A MINUTE AGO MAYBE PEOPLE ARE ALREADY STARTING TO COUNT US OUT. ARE THERE THINGS THAT YOU’VE SEEN IN HIS DEVELOPMENT ON THE OVALS THAT PLEASE YOU TO BELIEVE THAT, MAYBE NOT SO FAST?
“Yes. The gap from the 1 to the 88, on the ovals, has shrunk. If we’re fast, I expect him to be right there with us. He’s put the time in and learned the cars. You will always be better with more experience, but there’s enough there if Trackhouse performs the way we want to, we can make a lot of people wrong. And one of them won’t be me, I expect him to be right there with me wherever I’m at.”
EVERY TIME I’VE TALKED TO YOU, YOU’VE SEEM PRETTY CALM EVERY SINGLE SEASON. ARE YOU JUST HIDING THAT, OR ARE YOU?
“There are definite times where butterflies are flying a little more in the playoffs than they would have earlier in the summer.. The biggest mistake I’ve believe I’ve made is two. I’ve made one at Talladega where I tried to go four wide for stage points in the 2023 fall race. And then Roval, I believe, in ’22 or ’23, I wrecked by myself at the Roval. So, both of those stand out as unforced errors. I should have been off the gas, and I was on it, and I crashed. One cost me moving on and one I got away with. So usually, you don’t get away with those.”
WHAT WOULD YOU SAY ABOUT DARLINGTON?
“It’s my favorite track. It’s just absolutely top of my list. Whenever I look at tracks that I want to win at, and I want to work to be better at, Darlington is it. I’ve been through an incredible learning process since I first drove on that track of how to drive it and getting a Cup win there is absolutely top of my list.”
AND IF YOU GOT IT, WHAT WOULD THAT MEAN?
“It would mean everything. I mean, it’s a life achievement, similar to winning the Coca Cola 600, but I put Darlington at the very top. So, any fall race, Southern 500 race, is what I will work a long time to win, whether that’s this year or sometime later in my career. I know when I get done, I’m going to put a full body of work into trying to win there, and whether we ever do it or not is to be determined. But short term, it would mean say at World Wide Technology Raceway and Bristol, I would be walking around a whole lot lighter than if we don’t.”
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