Ross Chastain's farming roots emerge on NASCAR Sprint Cup stage
Even though Ross Chastain has been racing in NASCAR competition since 2011, he is NASCAR’s newest sensation and is enjoying his best season as the most recent winner on the elite Cup Series stage.
He’s a great lover of watermelons and there's a good reason. His family has been growing and selling them for generations, first in Georgia and in recent decades from Alva, Florida. The Chastains have a thriving business and while he is off racing somewhere on the 36-race Cup Series schedule, other family members are home planting and harvesting various fruits and vegetables for market.
All race drivers seem to have some type of signature move when they emerge from their cars after taking the checkered flag. Some raise their arms in victory. Others add No. 1 signs with fingers indicating victory, while others have stood atop of their cars and done backflips. Former driver Carl Edwards made that move quite famous.
Chastain has chosen to raise his arms, toss a perfectly good watermelon to the ground and hop down from his car’s rooftop to find a big red chunk to dig into to the delight of his fans. He’s done it after winning in NASCAR’s Xfinity and Camping World Truck Series over the past 11 years.
He expanded his familiar tradition to the Cup Series after winning his first career race this past Sunday at the Circuit of The Americas road course in Austin Texas in the second-annual EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix. Chastain masterfully drove his No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Camaro to victory after posting a string of strong finishes in recent weeks, including consecutive runner-up finishes at Phoenix and Atlanta.
After many smiles, he turned serious about what the win meant to him personally.
“…It’s a very small number of people in the world that grow the crops that feed this world and feed this population worldwide, so it’s a thankless job for the farmers,” Chastain said. “The real farmers. I’m just the one that gets to talk about it now, but I think for farmers and small racers everywhere, this is a big win. Obviously, I think so.”
Chastain is on top but his career seemed very much up in the air in June of 2021. He felt secure with team owner Chip Ganassi until shock waves reverberated throughout the sport when the organization was sold to Justin Marks and entertainer Pit Bull. Chastain thought he would be on the outside looking in with new management taking over in January of 2022.
“Yeah, there were some days there where I didn’t know. Turns out Justin pretty much knew all along,” Chastain said. “When the sale happened, I texted him. I was at a wheel force test with Chevy and said, ‘I want this, and he said, ‘I know. Give me some time.’
“To me, that time should have been five minutes. I was, like, ‘OK, just respond and say you’ve got the job, but it took some days and weeks. We were talking and figuring it out, and this is big business ... this is a huge industry. You don’t just get the ride because you want it. I get that.”
Chastain was still sitting on the edge of his seat when the announcement that Ganassi had sold the organization was made public on June 30, 2021. It was a true bombshell within the industry that no one saw coming. Very few people knew what was happening.
Chastain continued wheeling the No. 42 in 2021, while Kurt Busch was in the No. 1 Chevrolet. By August, Chastain was officially given the No. 1 ride for 2022, while Daniel Suarez went to the No. 42 with the number being changed to 99. Busch was hired to drive a second car for 23XI Racing for team owners Denny Hamlin and Michael Jordan.
“Ross didn’t really know which way was up,” Marks said. “(Chastain asked) ‘Am I a part of this? Do I have a future with the company? What’s the plan here?,’” said Marks, a former NASCAR and Trans Am driver himself. “I told him to be patient because we just tried to keep the buyout so quiet that when we went in to make the announcement, there were really only 12 people in the world that knew about it, and it was shocking for a lot of people.
“So there was a lot of work we had to do in the weeks afterwards. And then when we got to the point where, ‘okay, the dust is settled, we know sort of which way is up and we’re planning for what’s next,’ I told Ross when he got out of the car on the front straightaway (at COTA), ‘It was always you, it was always you.’”
Chastain has four top-three finishes including a victory in as many races in 2022. Where does he think the season will go?
“I don’t know. You never know in your next race how you’re going to run,” Chastain said. “This car is so volatile to drive. One bottom-out in the car-one time at California (Auto Club Speedway), and I hit the wall almost head-on and destroyed it (and) kicked off our season in the hole.
“It’s no guarantees ... It hasn’t slowed down, and I don’t expect it to slow down.”
This article originally appeared on The Dispatch: Ross Chastain's farming roots emerge on NASCAR Sprint Cup stage
