NASCAR MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 29, 2024

Ross Chastain

Frontstretch Quotes

An Interview with:

Q. The seventh generation Washington melon farmer gets to celebrated here in the Midwest in the only way that he loves to celebrate, with a little watermelon smash for the Kansas race fans after the sprint by the hauler driver all the way from the garage area to the front stretch here at Kansas Speedway. Ross Chastain, the winner here in Kansas.

Didn't make the playoffs, but they showed up in the playoffs. Last year they won the championship race at Phoenix. Not part of the playoffs, but they kick off the round of 12 for the playoff drivers as a non-playoff participant, but get it to victory lane. What is it about this race team and the propensity to be able to win these big playoff races, Ross?

ROSS CHASTAIN: What do you mean? What's the big deal? We won.

No, it's a huge deal, Marty. I am going to take down my consumption just a little bit. For us on this 1 team, it's what cup racing is all about. It's what Justin Marks bought into Trackhouse with Pitbull, bought into NASCAR with Trackhouse to do stuff like this, to disrupt.

Look, there's been times this year where we couldn't have disrupted the minnow pond outside of Darlington, let alone a cup race. It's hard. It's really tough.

To come and do this, there are times where I didn't think after practicing qualifying we had what it took. I thought we have been way stronger here in the past. It didn't feel great all day, but our Kubota Chevy, it was better as the rubber went down, and the adjustments were great.

I do have to say I have quite the bill piling up at Kubota, so this is going to definitely help to going to paying that off. I have some M-6s heading down to the farm. I've also been on Jim Campbell and everybody at GM for wanting one of the Silverado EVs, so I think I get front of the line now on that.

I remember that process I talked about at Nashville last year. We haven't left. We haven't went away. Nobody has slowed us down other than ourselves, and today we were the fastest car.

Q. You talked about being a playoff disruptor. He was certainly that today. Ross Chastain wins here at the Kansas speedway.