Easily the most pleasant surprise of 2022, Ross Chastain continued his dream season this past weekend at Talladega by winning for the second time in five starts. Chastain also leads NASCAR’s premier division with six top-five finishes in 10 races this year. Pretty impressive for a guy who prior to 2022 had gone winless in 115 starts and never been considered one of the sport’s elite drivers. Chastain, who is in his first season with the second-year Trackhouse Racing organization, will look to remain NASCAR’s hottest driver this weekend at Dover. In the meantime, though, the eighth-generation watermelon is struggling to wrap his brain around all the success he’s enjoyed this season — seemingly out of nowhere.
“It does not seem real at all,” Chastain said. “I keep waiting to wake up from this dream and realize it’s all not what I think I’m living. But I’ve got great groups of people from Trackhouse, the competition and business side, my family, people in Charlotte and around Mooresville (North Carolina) that keep reminding me and keep showing me this is real. I’m right where I want to be, and I have the people around me. They keep me remembering and keep reminding me and keep pushing me to make this the best we can make it.”
Chastain is especially astonished that his two wins this season have come on two vastly different types of tracks — a superspeedway and a road course. “Absolutely mind-blowing it is,” he said. “I grew up short-track racing, so I just assumed and thought that was where I was the best. Turning right was hard, drafting was hard. I just thought I would never be able to catch up to guys that had been doing it so much longer than me. A lot of time and work and really good people surrounding me, we’ve closed the gap. There’s still a long way to go. But yeah, it’s absolutely mind-blowing.”