Ross Chastain avoided some of the bad luck that has surrounded the SS Green Light Racing team over the last few NASCAR Camping World Truck Series races and brought the South Carolina Watermelon Association Toyota home with a sixteenth place finish Saturday night at the Iowa Speedway.
The No. 08 was solid off of the truck in Friday night’s initial practice session with Ross posting the twelfth quickest time and the Sunoco Rookie of the year candidate felt good about his prospects for Saturday night’s American Ethanol 200.
“We were good in the first practice on Friday night, but Saturday we just struggled with an overall lack of grip. I’m really not sure if it had anything to do with the Hoosier rubber from the ARCA race or not. We had an issue with the left front shock in the second practice and we changed the shock before qualifying.”
Chastain qualified twentieth in the thirty-six truck field and crew chief Brian Berry chose to make further adjustments to Chastain’s mount which relegated the Florida teen to the rear of the field at the start of the 200-lap race.
“Restarting at the back really didn’t hurt us that bad. I was able to move back into the top-twenty by the tenth lap but we really couldn’t make much more progress than that,” Ross explained. “We got a lap down in the middle of the race. The Melon just didn’t have enough overall grip to keep up with the leaders.”
Ross was able to get the South Carolina Watermelon Association Toyota back on the lead-lap by earning the “lucky-dog” pass on the races seventh and final caution with seventeen laps remaining in the event and crossed under the checkered flag in sixteenth behind winner Timothy Peters.
“It’s not quite how we thought we were going to run, especially after having a good first practice. It get’s to be a pretty long race when the truck just isn’t handling quite like you need it to,” Chastain continued. “We’ll definitely bring a different package when we come back to Iowa in September.”
“We were fortunate to avoid any bad luck and get a lead-lap finish.”
Chastain picked-up two positions to nineteenth in the NCWTS point standings as the series heads to the hometown of team owner Bobby Dotter on Saturday evening July 21st for the American Ethanol 225 at the Chicagoland Speedway.
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