Rain wouldn’t damper the spirits of the Hattori Racing Enterprises team and Ross Chastain as they finish 6th in the JEGS 150

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Although rain showers during the day canceled final practice on Saturday for the JEGS 150, the team was 14th quick in first round of practice and pulled off an 11th place qualifying run.

Driver Ross Chastain was quick to make gains in the opening laps of the JEGS 150 and by the 10th lap Chastain was up to 7th position.  The first caution of the night came on lap 28 and lasted until lap 31. It did not take long, by lap 36 Chastain had cracked the top five and had the leaders in his sight. A second caution of the night came out on lap 41 and went until lap 46. Shortly after the green flag came back out on lap 47, Chastain had moved from fifth to fourth, and then as each lap passed by he gained an additional spot, putting him in the lead at lap 56. The third caution of the night came out on lap 100 scoring Chastain in the third position.  A fourth yellow flag waved at lap 111 and car No.1 was back in second, with the leader once again in his sight.

Chastain took to the high side making it three wide on the front stretch going into turns one and two, Chastain backed out of the mix and on the next lap was when the team thought disaster had occurred, Chastain was battling with a fellow driver for the second place spot when Chastain was taped in the quarter panel and this sent him spinning and caused a fourth caution for the night.  Putting Chastain back to 13th position in NASCAR`s timing and scoring. With only 10 laps to go in the race Chastain battled his way back from the adversity to a solid 6th place finish.

After the race Ross Chastain said “I can`t thank Shige (Hattori) enough for letting me drive this weekend. We had a really good car off the trailer, but it took me some time to get up to speed. Qualifying was like nothing I had ever experienced, so we didn’t get the start where we would have liked. But I knew we had a good car for the long run. Once the race started I was focused on saving my equipment. And even with that we stayed in the top three.  Once we got shuffled back on the late restart I had to work my way back by slower cars. In doing that we got spun but I was able to drive back to 6th.  I can’t thank my HRE guys enough. We learned a lot and will be even better when we head to Iowa in two weeks.”

HRE PR

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