While other teams are touting their strengths heading into this Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Southern 500 playoff opener at Darlington Raceway, Ross Chastain is more concerned about whether his Trackhouse Racing’s No. 1 car and team have any glaring weaknesses.
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“I’ll start with the weakness, because it’s the easiest one,” Chastain said during media availability this week in Charlotte. “It’s just, are we going to be fast? Are we going to roll off the truck fast for practice at Darlington?
“Are we going to be able to stay fast on lap 10 of that run, lap 20, lap 30, and transfer that through into qualifying for one lap, and then back to long run for the race? That’s the ultimate question for Trackhouse, in my mind, is can we go fast?
“What are we good at? We can execute. Pit group, we can call strategy right, won’t miss calls. I’m confident field surgeon in the group. All the little things we can do really well.
“But it’s holding ourselves accountable to keep doing them well. I don’t just rest on what we’ve done but continuing to make sure we do the little things right. I think we can.”
Chastain considers Darlington as his favorite racetrack on the Cup circuit. Even though he’s never won at the 1.366-mile, egg-shaped oval, he’s held his own there with three top-fives and four top-10 finishes in 12 starts.
Chastain on a roll in his last four races at Darlington
The No. 1 Chevy driver has been exceptionally good in his last four starts at the home of the Lady In Black, with two fifth-place finishes, a seventh and an 11th place showing.
“It’s my favorite track,” Chastain said. “It’s just absolutely top of my list. Whenever I look at tracks that I want to win at, and I want to work to be better at, Darlington is it.
“I’ve been through an incredible learning process since I first drove on that track of how to drive it and getting a Cup win there is absolutely top of my list.”
Interestingly, in those last four races, Chastain has led just three laps, that coming in this race last year. He almost won the spring 2023 race at Darlington. He led 93 laps and was battling for the lead when he was involved in a wreck with six laps to go, finishing a disappointing 29th.
And one year before that, again in the spring race, he led 26 laps before his day ended two-thirds of the way through due to another crash. Overall this season, Chastain has one win (Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte), three top-fives and 10 top-10 finishes.
After a rough five-race patch between the second Atlanta race and Indianapolis, when he finished 30th or worse in three of those races, Chastain has rebounded of late, including a 10th at Watkins Glen and 11th at Iowa, along with a 19th at Richmond and 15th this past Saturday in the regular season finale at Daytona.
He will need to pick up his performance in the first three playoff races, Darlington, Gateway and Bristol, if he hopes to advance to the Round of 12.
