This past weekend at Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet Il, just outside of the windy city of Chicago, rain canceled the second round of practice for the NASCAR Nationwide series teams on Friday. Due to the rain canceling final practice, the team never got the chance to see if the changes that they made from the first practice to the second practice would work. They were 26th fastest in the first and only practice on Friday.
Qualifying was on Saturday morning and the changes the team made seemed to work, Ross Chastain and his Toyota sponsored Toyota qualified 19th for the Freaky Fast 300 that occurred later in the afternoon. Chastain came on the radio to tell the guys he was really happy with the car and to thank them for all of their hard work this week.
The team came in for their first of five stops on lap 27 when, NASCAR waved the yellow flag for the competition caution, the team quickly went to work giving Chastain four fresh tires, filled up with fuel and made some minor adjustments. When the green flag was back out Chastain was in 26th position. By lap 60 Chastain had moved back up in the field and was 22nd. On lap 65 the second caution of the night occurred for an accident in turn two involving one car, the team chose to pit for a second time and repeated the first pit stop with four tires, fuel and made some slight adjustments, this put Chastain in 20th position at the drop of the green flag on lap 70. Chastain maintained 20th position, when a third caution of the Freaky Fast 300 occurred on lap 94, again involving one car accident in turn two, the team opted to pit once again this time for two tires and fuel, while coming down pit road Chastain received a pit road speeding penalty . Green flag was back out on lap 98; on lap 136 a fourth caution of the night came out this time for debris in turn four.
On lap 137 Chastain took his No. 80 Toyota into the pits for four tires, fuel, and minor adjustments, at the time the green flag dropped on lap 139 Chastain was shown in the 24th position by NASCAR timing and scoring. After 14 laps a fifth caution of the night occurred because of fluid on the track, on lap 155 during the caution period the team pitted for its fifth and final stop of the night for four fresh Goodyear tires, filled up with Sunoco fuel and made some adjustments. The green flag flew once again on lap 159 and Chastain was sitting in the 22nd position. Lap 166 saw a sixth and final caution of the night once again for fluid on the track the green flag flew on lap 173 and by lap 180 with 20 laps to go Chastain had moved up to 14th. Kevin Harvick was the winner of the Freaky Fast 300 and Ross Chastain came home with a top- 20 finishing 19th overall.
After the race Ross Chastain had this to say “I thought we made significant gains from our 50 minute practice on Friday to Qualifying Saturday morning. Those changes proved to be way too far once the race started and I did my best to hang on to a loose racecar until we could make a swing at it. After that, I thought we had a good enough car to run inside the top 15 if we could get the track position. A speeding penalty on my end cost us that shot though. I’m proud of how my HRE boys stayed with me all weekend and never gave up. We fought hard and still put ourselves in a position to have a good finish. We learned a lot that will help us at Kentucky this week, adding to the advantage of racing two weeks in a row.”
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