Ross Chastain on performance at Charlotte Motor Speedway: 'Just felt good to be winning in something'
Ross Chastain didn’t win Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, but he did spend some time out front of the rest of the field. And that — that means something for Chastain, who endured a tough stretch of races heading into Charlotte.
“It was definitely a great call to cycle ourselves forward there at the beginning of Stage 2. Felt good to lead. It just felt good to be winning in something,” Chastain said after the race, via John Newby of NBC Sports. “I’m a competitor and it’s just good to lead laps again. We were running competitively, and we’d been in the top-10 all night.”
Chastain officially finished P8 before rain shortened the Coca-Cola to just 249 laps. That represents his best finish and first top-10 since a P7 result at Circuit of The Americas back in March. During the seven-race stretch in between top 10s, Chastain often ran inside the top-20, but hardly ever had a car capable of competing for a win.
He took a step in the right direction Sunday, even if it’s slightly disappointing he didn’t get the chance to fly through the field before rainfall.
“Mother Nature wins,” Chastain wrote on X. “We wanted to see what we could’ve done in the last 151 laps in our @Jockey @FoldsofHonor @TeamChevy, but we’ll take a top-10! Hoping for dry weather in St. Louis next weekend.”
Ross Chastain celebrates 200th NASCAR Cup Series start
Chastain notably made his 200th NASCAR Cup Series start at Darlington Raceway earlier this month, a historic milestone for the 31-year-old.
“I told the group that was putting together my first Cup start for Dover in 2017, I told them ‘No, I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t think I was ready,’” Chastain told NASCAR.com. “And then I went home and slept on it, woke up and drove back down and thought I probably should reconsider this and take this opportunity. I don’t know if it’ll ever happen again. So, it’s kind of like that first Truck start. I just wanted to, at that point, do a Cup race one time to say I did it and now we’re at 200. It’s incredible.”