DON’T MISS:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"NASCAR](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/393849.jpg\" "\\"NASCAR")
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Chastain shaved off his beard after missing the playoffs but then found a win (Image: Getty)<\/p>\n
\u201cBut for sure, motivating, because that was a bad feeling, and I don\u2019t want to feel bad. I want to feel good and I want to win. Definitely on the beard side I didn\u2019t want to do that again!<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was terrible. Just felt like a total disappointment. A let down to my team, I let them down, by not being able to get one (win) or not getting enough points.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThinking back to how many races I threw away points going for the win. The Daytona 500, a couple of different races I crashed in that were unforced errors, that stuck with me.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Again, just as he\u2019s always done, Chastain didn\u2019t give up. While a win at Kansas was too little too late in terms of the playoffs, it was the shot in the arm the No.1 team needed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were able to go and get that win at Kansas, and that was a really rewarding win,\u201d he recalls. \u201cTo be able to continue to show up in the playoffs\u2026we just kept hammering away. Maybe to our own detriment sometimes, but we just kept going and put it together in the fall.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The ability of Chastain and the No.1 team to ride the highs and lows was in full display after speaking to the Express U.S. Sports. Moments after our chat at Charlotte Motor Speedway, he crashed out in qualifying.<\/p>\n
His team rallied to prepare his backup car, and he started the Coca-Cola 600 from the rear. He ended up winning the race, a historic Crown Jewel victory which undoubtedly slots in behind the \u2018Hail Melon\u2019 among his finest moments.<\/p>\n
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Chastain won the Coca-Cola 600 after starting last (Image: Getty)<\/p>\n
Chastain\u2019s drive, culminating in passing William Byron for the win, was a display of raw speed combined with a patience and maturity which may well have been missing in years gone by. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like I\u2019m older, and I’m always going to try and learn from my past. I\u2019ve had a lot of NASCAR races I\u2019ve been able to be a part of.<\/p>\n
\u201cEarly in the year last year we did have a couple of shots (to win), legitimately. But it goes in waves. I\u2019ve learned to weather the storms and be fine.<\/p>\n
\u201cMonday mornings, show up no matter what. And if we keep doing that, we\u2019ll be OK.\u201d<\/p>\n
In years gone by, Chastain had a tendency to rub drivers up the wrong way with his aggressive style. While he\u2019s still known as a hard, no-nonsense racer, the fact he\u2019s been able to fly much more under the radar is a clear sign of the way he\u2019s developed.<\/p>\n
Still, there\u2019s an unofficial, unwritten law of order that comes with policing the Cup Series garage with rivals out on track.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cJust depends who has the last hit, who spun each other out last,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019ve got guys where I did it last to them, and guys where they did it to me, more than once, so that\u2019s just how it goes. That\u2019s what racing\u2019s all about.\u201d<\/p>\n
With his playoff place locked in, Chastain and the No.1 team can breath a sigh of relief knowing\u00a0 there won\u2019t be a repeat of last year\u2019s painful postseason miss. But with ambitions on returning to the Championship 4, just where the \u2018Hail Melon\u2019 sent him in 2022, there\u2019s no time for rest.<\/p>\n
\u201cGood, not great,\u201d Chastain characterized his season prior to his Coca-Cola 600 win. \u201cDefinitely Saturday\u2019s we could be better, start closer. We\u2019re competitors. We want to be the best in everything, and we haven\u2019t been hitting that mark on Saturdays.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ross Chastain has established himself as a top NASCAR star (Image: Getty) On the night of October 30,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":21787,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[20044,4423,1406,1459,11239,62,20045,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-21786","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-hail-melon","9":"tag-motorsport-section","10":"tag-nascar","11":"tag-nascar-cup-series","12":"tag-ross-chastain","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-trackhouse-racing","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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