Ross Chastain is ready to ‘evolve, and get better’ with his aggressiveness but not at the cost of ‘rolling over and staying behind everybody’
Follow Us
Ross Chastain
Ross Chastain, the No:1 Chevy Camaro ZL1 driver for NASCAR cup series newcomers Trackhouse Racing has been the revelation of the 2022 season as he has grown from being a mid-pack driver to a championship contender after he was provided one of the best cars on the grid in his Trackhouse debut season. With 2 wins coming in COTA and Talledega Chastain now sits just 30-odd points behind championship leader Chase Elliott at P2.
Ross Chastain will hit the tracks on Sunday hoping to secure enough points which will enable him to reduce the gap or overcome Elliott in the table in the pursuit of a regular-season championship. The aggressive style of racing Chastain brings to the table will be one of his assets in the chase but also reliability as it stains his reputation in the NASCAR community as his unapologetic driving style divides the opinion on him.
Ross Chastain’s aggressiveness came in front of the criticism limelight the more in last month’s inaugural cup race at St. Louis, Gateway where he went hard at veteran Denny Hamlin and former Champion Chase Elliott as his aggressiveness brought the end of their races. Though Chastain came out apologizing which didn’t resonate well with some NASCAR figures now ahead of the upcoming Road America cup race and, has come forth expressing his thoughts on his driving style.
Find out what Ross Chastain said
Reminiscing on the WWTR race he once again acknowledged that he was very sorry for the fact that he spun Chase Elliott and wrecked Denny Hamlin to the wall, though he didn’t have any intention to commit any such deeds. He went on to say that spinning Chase was all on him as he made a mistake on entering turn 3 and forced the trouble on him going three-wide.
“Well, I’m learning as I go here. Gateway (WWTR), if you just want to zoom in on that, I got out of the car, and I truly was sorry that I wrecked Denny into the wall, and I was sorry I spun Chase out. I did not have the intention to do that. Now, Chase was truly a mistake on my part entering Turn 3, and then to put it three-wide was a really bad judgment call. I didn’t need to force that issue at all,” Ross Chastain said.
But talking about wrecking Denny Hamlin he acknowledged that it was 100% intentional, which contradicts his previous statement, but pointed out that he feels sorry for the fact that he went that hard on him. Ross Chastain went on to say that he did over-apologize in his post-race interview as he failed to get across the point he intended to which put him in a downward spiral of over-apologizing.
“Denny was 100% I intended to bump him out of the way. The problem was, that I did it way too hard, and I was sorry for that. What I didn’t get across in my interview — because I got out of the car and about seven and a half seconds later, here come cameras and microphones — I just froze up a bit and over-apologized. I did. I was sorry that I wrecked him, but I didn’t get across what I was trying to, and I got into this downward spiral that I tend to do and over-apologized,” Ross Chastain added.
The aggression was part of Chastain’s growth to top-tier stock racing so he pointed out that he isn’t going to roll over and be a back runner as he wishes to evolve in his racing and the way he speaks. He added that he cant ramble on and on about running into someone though there exists a need for the middle ground. Ross Chastain added that he went at Hamlin too early in the race for things he did against him as he should have waited a bit more to the end.
“I’m not going to roll over and stay behind everybody; y’all have seen that since Gateway. But how I get out of the car and speak is something I have to evolve, and it has to get better. I can’t ramble on and on about how sorry I am when I just ran into a couple of guys. There needs to be some middle ground. And I did run into Denny on purpose, I just did it way too hard and way too early in the race. I probably should have saved that card for later. But there were reasons I was doing that, and it was because of how we were racing, the things he was doing to me,” Ross Chastain explained.
Stay Updated!
Justin P Joy
(5014 Articles Published)