Top Fifteen for Ross Chastain in the Windy City

Ross Chastain is having a little fun again. As the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series made it’s way through the Midwest, Chastain spent his week entertaining and promoting watermelon at various venues around the Windy City. Saturday night, the Sunoco Rookie of the Year candidate had some fun on the racetrack bringing his Illiana Watermelon Association Toyota home 13th in the American Ethanol 225 at the Chicagoland Speedway.

 

The Florida teen qualified the SS Green Light No. 08 19th with a lap of 31.69 seconds on the mile and an half speedway just south of Chicago at over 170.4 miles per hour.

 

“It was a real good race. We definitely had a lot of fun, got to run the whole race and we learned a lot,” an excited Chastain said. “We practiced 20th and 12th, the truck felt the same in both sessions; we just had a little more speed in the second. We qualified 19th and then we were able to drive forward from the drop of the green, I was able to drive around a bunch of guys.”

“We got to run with some guys that we’ve been watching run like Ron Hornaday and Cale Gale, now we got to race with them a little bit. That was a good feeling and we’re going in the right direction. We have been pretty good when we unload and we’re doing the right things from the shop to the track.”

“At the end of the race were kind of stuck where we were so we decided to come down to pit road with about ten laps to go. We were in 12th, but I didn’t feel we could move forward from there.” Ross explained. “So we came in a put on a set of tires we had run good lap times on earlier in the race. We came to get those tires that had cooled off a bit for the finish. We were about the only ones to pit and we came out around 18th, one of the last trucks on the lead lap. At the drop of the green I was able to makes some moves on the outside to get around a bunch of trucks. Everything went right for us on that restart to get back to where we were before we pitted.”

“Then we had that last caution and the green, white, checkered. Somebody got jumbled-up on the start and I don’t know how I made it through it but I ended-up picking up a bunch of spots to 8th or 9th coming to the end of the race, it was pretty cool.”

“We we’re eighth on the white flag, but I got into the wall a little bit on the last lap; I just lost the nose and ran up to the wall, nobody pushed me up there or anything. I just barley got out of the gas and lost momentum and a couple of trucks got by me. I only hit the wall for ten feet, but it really slowed me down.”

Through the excitement of the last lap Ross brought the Illiana Watermelon Association Toyota across the finish line in 13th behind James Buescher who won his third race of the 2012 NCWTS season.

“It was awesome, the pit grew did great all night,” he concluded. “When we had a green flag pit-stop early in the race they got me out in front of Jason White who had just passed me on the track. It’s a good feeling with the pit crew he has for us to compete with them. All but our jackman work in the SS Green Light shop everyday. Everyone did a great job.”

SS Green Light Racing PR