Ross Chastain

Ross Lee Chastain (born December 4, 1992) is an American professional stock car racing driver.

He competes full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, driving the No. 1 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 for Trackhouse Racing and part-time in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, driving the No. 45 Chevrolet Silverado for Niece Motorsports.

He is the older brother of fellow NASCAR driver Chad Chastain.

Chastain started racing at the age of twelve, his interest piqued by his father's hobby racing and other kids his age racing.

His home track was Punta Gorda Speedway in Punta Gorda, Florida, at age twelve, competing in both late model and Fastruck Series events.

Even those races, at tracks like Citrus County Speedway, Auburndale Speedway and DeSoto Speedway, were run on a tight budget, a theme that carried on to much of Chastain's career in the higher ranks of NASCAR.

He finished 10th in that event.

Connections in the watermelon farming industry got Chastain four more races, which were marred by incidents at Bristol Motor Speedway and Kentucky Speedway.

At Homestead-Miami Speedway, rain prevented the Turn One team from making the race, so the team bought an RSS Racing start and park entry and ran the full race, finishing two laps down.

His short track career saw Chastain scoring over fifty wins in feature events, including the Limited Late Model portion of the 2011 World Series Of Asphalt Stock Car Racing at New Smyrna Speedway, winning three of eight events in the series.

After making the move to Charlotte in mid-2011, Chastain took over the No. 66 Turn One Racing entry in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series after Justin Marks vacated the seat.

His first Truck race, at Lucas Oil Raceway at Indianapolis, was his first race with live pit stops.

It was later announced that Chastain would compete for Rookie of the Year honors with SS-Green Light Racing in 2012.

Driving the No. 08 truck sponsored by the National Watermelon Association and National Watermelon Promotion Board, he scored a career-best finish of seventh in the second race of the season at Martinsville Speedway.

He bested his 7th-place finish with a 3rd-place finish at Bristol in August.

In January 2013, it was announced that Chastain would drive in 15 Camping World Truck Series races in 2013 for Brad Keselowski Racing.

At Iowa Speedway in September, Chastain won his first career Truck Series pole for the Fan Appreciation 200; he led the most laps in the race, finishing second to James Buescher as the race underwent a green-white-checkered finish.

Chastain also came close to the win at the penultimate race at Phoenix, finishing second to Erik Jones after leading over 60 laps.

Years later, Chastain said that he initially made the move to BKR as an attempt to get in a Team Penske ride, but that BKR and Penske did not view the situation that way.

Leaving BKR after the 2013 season, Chastain moved to RBR Enterprises for a part-time schedule in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series for 2014.

Comments before and after the Martinsville race, as well as racing actions during the race, led the team to fire Chastain from the ride.

In May, he made his debut in the Nationwide Series (now Xfinity Series) at Charlotte Motor Speedway, driving the No. 55 for Viva Motorsports.

Chastain later drove for Hattori Racing Enterprises at Michigan International Speedway, replacing Johnny Sauter.

If that opportunity did not arise, Chastain was set to replace another driver that weekend, John Wes Townley in the No. 5 Wauters Motorsports truck at Gateway Motorsports Park.

In the race with HRE, Chastain finished twelfth, which was to that point the team's best finish in NASCAR competition.

The finish eventually turned into more sporadic appearances with HRE throughout the rest of the season.

Chastain also joined the team for a part-time NASCAR K&N Pro Series East effort that year.

The opportunity emerged after Chastain raced with TriStar Motorsports at the end of the 2014 season.

His car was comparable to the performances of the JDM cars, which led to a deal in the offseason.

Chastain logged four top-tens on the year, ninth in the season-opening PowerShares QQQ 300, tenth at the other Daytona race, tenth at Iowa, and tenth at Darlington, and got into an altercation with Ryan Reed after a race at Richmond International Raceway.

Reed claimed Chastain made too much contact on late restarts and vowed payback, while Chastain simply brushed the incident off as a difference of opinions in short-track racing.

He then joined JD Motorsports in 2015, replacing Jeffrey Earnhardt.

Chastain's 2017 Xfinity season was the best of his career, scoring a top-five at Iowa and two top tens as well as finishing 13th in points, the highest of the non-playoff drivers.

He achieved this after a tight points battle with J. J. Yeley for the spot in the last four races of the season.

In the second half of the season, Chastain rarely finished outside the top twenty and mainly finished in the mid-teens.

The season was marred by two fights with fellow Xfinity drivers, one with Jeremy Clements at Bristol after Clements confronted him and one with Brendan Gaughan at Texas after heated on-track competition.

Chastain, Gaughan, and crew members from both teams brawled behind Victory Lane after the night race.

A crew member from JD Motorsports teammate Garrett Smithley was taken to the hospital with a head injury after the fight.

Chastain blamed the confrontation on Gaughan, saying the Richard Childress Racing driver attacked him, but also acknowledged that he races hard and does not play favorites.

Gaughan initially avoided discussing the incident with reporters but later boasted about the incident on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio and said that he received several text messages from fellow drivers who were happy about the incident.