CHEVROLET NCS: Chastain Caps Off Chevrolet’s Weekend Sweep with Nashville Victory

TOP TEAM CHEVY UNOFFICIAL TOP-10 RESULTS:

POS. DRIVER

1st ROSS CHASTAIN, NO. 1 WORLDWIDE EXPRESS CAMARO ZL1

4th CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 9 NAPA AUTO PARTS CAMARO ZL1

5th KYLE LARSON, NO. 5 HENDRICKCARS.COM CAMARO ZL1

6th WILLIAM BYRON, NO. 24 LIBERTY UNIVERSITY CAMARO ZL1

8th ERIK JONES, NO. 43 ALLEGIANT CAMARO ZL1

9th KYLE BUSCH, NO. 8 CHEDDAR’S SCRATCH KITCHEN CAMARO ZL1

10th AJ ALLMENDINGER, NO. 16 CELSIUS CAMARO ZL1

TOP-FIVE UNOFFICIAL RESULTS:

POS. DRIVER

1st Ross Chastain (Chevrolet)

2nd Martin Truex Jr. (Toyota)

3rd Denny Hamlin (Toyota)

4th Chase Elliott (Chevrolet)

5th Kyle Larson (Chevrolet)

ROSS CHASTAIN, NO. 1 WORLDWIDE EXPRESS CAMARO ZL1 – Race Winner Quote

It’s a hometown Nashville win for Trackhouse Racing, who likes to claim Music City as their hometown. What an impressive performance, Ross, by you and your group. After a rough month and a half for you and the 1 team, how is a win for a little medicine?

“Georgia watermelon, I got to tell you, this is incredible.

This is why every little kid out there anywhere in the world, when you get criticized, and you’re going to if you’re competitive, they will try to tear you down. You will start believing you can’t do it. You have to go to your people, trust in the process, read your books, trust the big man’s plan upstairs, just keep getting up and going to work. I got to tell you, a lot of self-reflection throughout all this. I had a group that believed in me and they didn’t let me get down. They bring rocket ships and I just try to point them to Victory Lane.

How did you put the criticism behind you?

“Trust in my people. My family back home. The agriculture industry, they’re always there for me.

Everybody at Trackhouse Justin Marks puts in place, Phil Surgen, on the 1 and 99. To win in Nashville is absolutely incredible. The WISE program, everybody at GM, Chevrolet.

I train with so many of my competitors, but it makes us better. Up against the best out there. For Worldwide Express Racing to sweep the weekend, get the pole, we won everything we could have with WWEX Racing. Jockey, Advent Health, the Moose. It’s absolutely incredible the fight that we have.”

I love the emotion in the burnout. You said in the middle of it, This is so much fun. Is this born out of relief or…

“That’s just a desire to win. I got to tell you, it’s just so hard at this level. It’s the best of the best. It’s where I’ve wanted to be since I was 18 years old, from studying for over 10 years just to qualify better let alone go race for a Cup race win.

Along the way, the journey, I’m so happy that my group is here, everybody that supports me. Yeah, look, it’s a Cup win. I don’t care what happened last month, the rest of my life, it’s a freaking Cup win.”

The 2023 NASCAR Cup Series season continues at the Chicago Street Course with the Grant Park 220 on Sunday, July 2, at 5:30 p.m. ET. Live coverage can be found on NBC, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Channel 90.

TEAM CHEVY POST-RACE QUOTES:

CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 9 NAPA AUTO PARTS CAMARO ZL1

Finished: 4th

I KNOW YOU AND ALAN GUSTAFSON WORKED ON THE CAR ALL NIGHT AND IT SEEMED LIKE IT GOT BEST WHEN IT GOT DARK LIKE LAST YEAR WHEN YOU WON THIS RACE. WHAT CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT HOW THE 400 MILES WENT FOR YOU CHASE?

“It was solid, but we still needed a little bit. I actually thought we were the best at the start of the race and then we kind of got off there in the mid-stage and I think we basically just kind of got back to where we were and everyone else got a little better. But yeah, proud of the effort and to get two top-fives in a row is a good thing for us. Trying to get things going, so we will try again in Chicago.”

KYLE LARSON, NO. 5 HENDRICKCARS.COM CAMARO ZL1

Finished: 5th

HOW DID YOUR DAY GO AND WHAT MORE DID YOU NEED?

“We were pretty bad all race long and I don’t know how we ended up fifth there. Our team just did a good job with the pit cycles to leapfrog a few guys, and then we were actually somewhat decent on that last run and passed a couple of cars. So, I am surprised we ended up fifth. Happy with the effort and happy with another week of keeping our heads in it and getting a good finish out of the day.

Proud of the team. We just have to get the race cars a little bit faster now or I need to look at data on what I need to do because we just haven’t been as strong as we were through the first couple of months. But now, I think we are executing way better than we did, you know, ever so far through the season. I am very happy with that; just wish we could have some of those early races back at this point. All-in-all, happy with a top five, just frustrated that we didn’t have the speed to really go battle.”

WILLIAM BYRON, NO. 24 LIBERTY UNIVERSITY CAMARO ZL1

Finished 6th

“We had decent balance once the sun was out and then okay through the middle portion of the race. Just not a lot of speed to catch those guys who were rolling the center, which is our weakness. We just got eaten up on the restarts not being able to roll into (turn) one.

The No. 24 Liberty University Chevrolet was decent all night. The guys worked really hard, and it was just that last run where we needed a little bit more. It’s good to come home sixth and kind of be somewhat disappointed with that. We will go to work next week for Chicago and get a little bit better and see what we can improve. I thought the weekend was solid as a whole.”

ERIK JONES, NO. 43 ALLEGIANT CAMARO ZL1

Finished: 8th

“It was a good day. We had a good No. 43 Allegiant Chevy. We were able to run up towards the top-10 all day, so just need to build on that. If you can be up there and running competitively, it gives you something to work on. Today was the first day in a while that I felt like we were in the ballpark and where we need to be, so that’s a good step. I’m proud of the effort, for sure. We’re getting the cars better and where we want them to be, and hopefully just get them a little bit more moving forward.”

KYLE BUSCH, NO. 8 CHEDDAR’S SCRATCH KITCHEN CAMARO ZL1

Finished: 9th

“We had a really good No. 8 Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen Chevy, but just kept making mistakes again. We had a flat to begin the race, so that kind of set us behind, but we were able to recover from that. And then sped on pit road, so that set us back. We got involved in that wreck on the frontstretch, so we had some damage. By that time, the sun had gone down and everybody had picked up speed and worked on their cars, and it’s just really hard to pass. It just took us a long time to keep clawing back and getting back up as far as we could. Good finish overall, but definitely know there was more.”

AJ ALLMENDINGER, NO. 16 CELSIUS CAMARO ZL1

Finished: 10th

“We had a really good day. Our car was really balanced all day; we didn’t have to make adjustments. We just couldn’t get the track positions and we lost spots on pit road and had to make up for it. At the end of the day, that probably cost up three or four spots overall. I’m proud of the team. We are making a lot of progress, we had a lot of speed all weekend. I’m looking forward to going to a street course here to hopefully make up some more ground.”

DANIEL SUAREZ, NO. 99 TOOTSIES ORCHID LOUNGE CAMARO ZL1

Finished: 12th

“It wasn’t too bad. I thought we were going to be a little bit better than that, to be honest. I felt like our No. 99 Tootsies Chevy was a top-10 car most of the race. I don’t know what happened on the last run, the car was pretty bad. But very, very happy for Trackhouse Racing.”

AUSTIN DILLON, NO. 3 HUK CAMARO ZL1

Finished: 13th

“It was a long, hot weekend in the No. 3 Huk Chevrolet at Nashville Superspeedway. Crew chief Keith Rodden and all the guys on the No. 3 team adjusted on our Chevy throughout the race to improve handling and try to make us better on the short run. It was frustrating because we had a lot of ground to make up after starting 26th and everyone is so similar, speed-wise, that it was difficult to pass at times. We got pretty tight as the race progressed, especially on take-off. We did make progress, though, and for a while I thought we were going to be able to get a top-10 finish. I did everything I could, but it’s just tough out there. We’ll regroup and head to the Chicago Street Race next weekend.”

NOAH GRAGSON, NO. 42 BLACK RIFLE COFFEE COMPANY CAMARO ZL1

Finished: 26th

“It was a smooth day. Proud of the No. 42 Black Rifle Coffee Company Chevy team’s effort. We brought the car home in one piece. A day like this is what we needed to build momentum on.”