(Photo: Erik Smith | The Podium Finish)
LAS VEGAS — New year, same Ross Chastain.
Trackhouse Racing’s Chastain has picked up in 2023 right where he left off in 2022. The championship runner-up from Alva, Florida has top-10 finishes in both races this season, including a third-place effort last week at Auto Club Speedway.
The 30-year-old has won three of four stages this year and sits atop driver’s points, leading Joey Logano, the defending champion, by one.
The motto?
Two hundred and thirty-five feet. That’s how close the No. 1 team was to winning a championship last season.
“There’s nothing more clear than 235 feet painted in front of Trackhouse where Justin (Marks) wanted to remind us daily how close we were,” Chastain told the media on Saturday. “We’re working – all of us – in our respective jobs to close that 235 feet to zero.
“It starts with this car. I can’t overlook what this new car – not-so-new anymore – has done for the series and our team in particular. We’ve been able to build off the foundation that was CGR (Chip Ganassi Racing) and grow it into what we are now. It’s wild. Rolling into this year, we’re not resting on what we accomplished last year.”
Chastain won a pair of races last season — the first two of his career. He maintained consistency throughout the season and made his famous “Hail Melon” move at Martinsville Speedway to make the championship race.
However, the beginning of the 2022 season wasn’t as smooth. He finished 40th in the Daytona 500 and 29th at Auto Club.
Chastain and Marks had a lunch after that race to ignite a stretch of four races with top-three finishes. Chastain was happy to not have that lunch this season, he joked.
(Photo: Luis Torres | The Podium Finish)
“I did text him this week on Tuesday and said I was happy we weren’t having our second annual post-Auto Club lunch,” Chastain said. “I went and ate there by myself just to do it and for the reminder that it could be that again. It could be not as good as we have it right now and to enjoy the moment. The circumstances around eating on the Tuesday after Auto Club one year apart was a total 180. He did a lot of talking last year and I did a lot of listening. I didn’t have a lot of answers for him then, but we went back to work and started getting the ship righted.
“I was really happy this year when I sat there alone and got to enjoy my lunch and then go back to work at the shop.”
Chastain has thrived at Las Vegas Motor Speedway of late, following up his third-place effort last spring with a runner-up in the fall. In that race, Logano bested Chastain in the closing laps after leading 38 circuits.
In his previous seven starts at Las Vegas, mostly with underfunded teams, Chastain never finished better than 20th.
“I feel like there are other tracks that I understand more and there are other tracks where I’ve had faster racecars at, but for some reason there have been some really high, bright moments here,” Chastain said. “I look at it like every other track. I study it like every other track, and I studied it harder this week leading into this race than I ever have before because I have more tools at my disposal than I ever have before. I don’t have answers. I really don’t know why. It doesn’t really feel any different when I’m on track. There’s not like a magic feeling I have where I know what I need in my racecar.”
Chastain flexed his Las Vegas speed again Saturday, qualifying eighth for the Pennzoil 400 presented by Jiffy Lube. The race is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. ET on FOX.
