Ross Chastain, who has had a remarkable Xfinity Series rookie season driving JD Motorsports with Gary Keller Chevrolets, will return to the team’s No. 4 cars for the 2016 season.
Team owner Johnny Davis, who fields multiple cars in the Xfinity Series, made the announcement at his Gaffney, S.C. shop.
“I couldn’t be happier with what Ross has done this season,” Davis said. “He is a smart, young driver with unlimited potential. We knew from the first race at Daytona (where Chastain finished ninth) that we were going to be in for a good year with him. He’s been able to balance getting good finishes with protecting our cars and staying out of trouble, and we couldn’t ask for more.
“It’s going to be fun to go racing for another season with Ross.”
With two races remaining in the 2015 season, Chastain is 15th in Xfinity Series driver points. Through 31 races, he has scored four top 10s and 18 top 20s. His best finish is the ninth at Daytona.
Despite his rookie status and the fact that he was racing at many of the Xfinity tracks for the first time, Chastain has stayed in the top 16 in points all season, with a high point position of fifth.
“We want to build off what we got this year,” Chastain said. “It was obviously a good year in a lot of ways, but we can always be better. I’m really looking forward to a second year there.”
Chastain said the ninth-place run in the Daytona season-opener was a great early boost for him and the team.
“With the way Daytona is and how those races can be, I sort of expected something bad to happen and that we would just go on to the next race,” Chastain said. “But we made it through all the melees and had a chance to win the race. It was great. To see the look on Johnny’s face and on Gary’s face and to see the reaction of all the guys on the team was fun. It opened my eyes to how we could do some things that people might not have expected.”
Chastain, 22, was a short-track sensation in his native Florida before moving on to NASCAR national touring series.
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