With just three races left in the NASCAR XFINITY Series and NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, drivers Ross Chastain (XFINITY Series) and Tyler Reddick (Camping World Truck Series) headed to Fort Myers with Homestead-Miami Speedway on Monday in advance of the season-ending Ford Championship Weekend (November 20-22).
Chastain and Reddick first visited South Fort Myers High School and spoke to students in the automotive program to talk to the students about their careers in NASCAR and as NASCAR drivers. The drivers then headed out to the school’s bus ramp, to burn some rubber in the Homestead-Miami Speedway official pace car.
“Going to South Fort Myers High School and getting to tour the automotive class and seeing what the kids are doing and what they’re teaching them at the school about, the fundamentals that a lot of people – including myself – in high school didn’t have the opportunity to learn about is cool to see them at their age be interested in cars,” Chastain said. “These kids were engaged and wanted to know how we build our race cars and they wanted to know all of that. If you want to be in NASCAR, you need to eat, sleep and breathe cars and it was cool to see that fire in the students.”
“It was a really great opportunity that I was able to be a part of today,” Reddick said. “Getting to come here and spend time with them, it was a real blast and I just tried to make them feel as comfortable as they could. I was probably more shy to talk to them than they were to talk to me.”
The drivers then headed to Golisano Children’s Hospital to meet with pediatric patients. Chastain, who is from the Alva area near Fort Myers, was actually born in Golisano Children’s Hospital.
“This is where I was born – so that’s cool,” Chastain said. “Seeing kids that are sick is tough, so it definitely brings things back into reality and seeing the support these kids have was cool to come in and give them something to smile about.”
“You realize how fortunate life can be,” Reddick said. “This is a really good place for the kids and the nurses do a great job at keeping everyone comfortable and ‘homey’.”
Reddick, a rookie in the Camping World Truck Series, is running his first full-time season for Brad Keselowski Racing, and currently is third in the points standings, and only 13 points behind series points leader Erik Jones. Reddick will be competing for the Camping World Truck Series Championship title in the Ford EcoBoost 200 on Friday, November 20 (8:00 p.m., FOX Sports 1).
“I’m very excited to race on Homestead-Miami Speedway,” Reddick said. “It was the last race I ran before I won at Daytona (this February). That race (at Homestead-Miami Speedway) set us up for Daytona and I think we’re very prepared to do well in Miami in a couple of weeks.”
Chastain, who is competing in his first full-time season in the NASCAR XFINITY Series with JD Motorsports, is currently 15th in the points standings. Originally from Alva near Fort Myers, he began racing at Punta Gorda Racetrack in Punta Gorda, Florida, and will be competing in the season finale XFINITY Series race at Homestead-Miami Speedway, the Ford EcoBoost 300 on Saturday, November 21 (2:45 p.m., NBC).
“Homestead-Miami is an awesome track to drive on,” Chastain said. “It’s one of my favorite tracks to drive on. For a mile and a half track, you can move around top to bottom and it lends itself to a driver.”
Homestead-Miami Speedway PR
