NASHVILLE — Justin Marks doesn’t want Ross Chastain to fundamentally change. He never did.
In the aftermath of the spring race at Darlington Raceway, where it seemed like everyone was furious at Chastain, the co-owner of Trackhouse Racing jumped on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio and said his driver had some things to clean up.
“Some difficult conversations,” Marks said that evening. “I think the important message here is that we are a believer in Ross’ talent. That’s obvious. He’s very fast. But he’s got some things he’s got to clean up. We today started the process of more aggressively handling that — with our partners, with Ross and with our team. Not necessarily because we’re mad at him, but there’s so much opportunity here.
“We’re addressing it. I’m going to take a more active role in it. I love the kid. I love the opportunity it’s given every single person at Trackhouse to be able to put a championship run together. But there’s stuff that has to be cleaned up. It’s a process he’s going to have to start going through sooner rather than later.”
How could that not be read as an indictment of Chastain and his trademark aggression, his propensity for drawing the ire of his fellow competitors, and after Darlington, frustration that started coming from other team owners like Rick Hendrick?
Marks had already begun to clarify his message going into the weekend but certainly could express it with even more confidence after their first NASCAR victory of the season on Sunday in the Ally 400 at Nashville Superspeedway.
“There was never like a sit-down moment, where we said ‘do this and do that,'” Marks explained. “I’ve been going through this experience with Ross as a Cup driver with me as a Cup owner for the first time. He’s made mistakes and I’ve made mistakes and we’re learning together.”
Marks said that everyone at Trackhouse sat down together as a team after Darlington and just worked through a lot of things they wanted to clean up together. His goal was to capitalize on opportunities like Sunday at Nashville where they sat on the pole with Chastain and clearly had the best car.
To not mess those up.
Learning how to compete with aggression
Specifically, when it comes to Chastain and his aggressive tendencies, Marks said many of the greats had to learn to channel their most aggressive stylistic approaches. He cited Brad Keselowski, Carl Edwards, Tony Stewart and Kevin Harvick.
These are all more than fair comparisons to Chastain.
“This sport has had guys that show up that have so much speed and aggression, they have to learn how to compete with it,” Marks said. “That’s the process that Ross is going through right now. You look at a race like tonight, I mean, he just did everything right, everything perfectly. He had a super-fast car. The conditions changed from day to night. They ran three-wide for three laps, which was incredible. He did everything right.”
Marks and Chastain both had some work to do to smooth things over after Darlington. Hendrick said he didn’t care if they were a fellow Chevrolet organization, but if Chastain continued to put his cars in the fence, his drivers would reciprocate in kind.
Those were strong words from a generally stoic man.
“I guess at this point in the race maybe you’re super aggressive, but you just don’t run people up in the fence,” Hendrick said. “He’s going to make a lot of enemies. It’s hard to win a championship when you’ve got a lot of paybacks out there.”
Marks said he talked it over on behalf of his driver and when it came time to talk to Chastain, the conversation was just about capitalizing on moments like this weekend.
“That conversation was like, ‘Let’s work hard, the both of us, to just not throw away these amazing opportunities that we have,'” Marks said. “I’ll help you as much as I can. You try to help me. Let’s go through this process together. That’s what the conversation was. It turned into me sitting him down and telling him something, which is not the truth. That’s not what happened.”
So it spoke volumes that Chastain ran practically a perfect race, without a bit of drama, and even defeated head-to-head one of his most vocal critics in Denny Hamlin and a champion in Martin Truex Jr.
“Did you see the two guys I passed,” Chastain said. “Feels pretty good.”
Chastain recently drew the ire of Truex at Dover, which bothered Chastain a little bit, only because he was a longtime fan and admirer of the 2016 champion. He told the story of a signed Truex hat that he still has at home.
“To go and beat them, to beat one of my heroes and to pass the 11 (Hamlin) too, and how we did it, I feel like that was a statement,” Chastain said.
Chastain says he’s aware of all the things he still has to work on but hopes everyone internally and externally see him working to become the best version of himself.
“I’m not a big ‘rah rah guy,’ but they see me going to work, everyone at the shop and at Chevrolet,” Chastain said. “They see me, and hear me going to work with my management group and they see that I’m all in.
“So I don’t feel like I need to tell them all that stuff. We just go to work as a group and get to work every day. My car chief David Fero is a big philosophical guy about surrounding yourself with positive and inspirational affirmation, reading books that teach you how to stay neutral.
“They see that I’m doing that. I still make mistakes and they’re okay with that. I know that I have the best team on pit road and at the shop and we’re just going about our business.”
NASCAR to Evaluate SAFER coverage
It’s rare in the current NASCAR landscape for a crashing car to find a section of a race track that doesn’t have a SAFER Barrier protecting it but that’s exactly what happened on Lap 147 when a restart stack-up sent Ryan Blaney hard and nose-first into a concrete barrier on the inside of Turn 1.
Blaney said it was the hardest hit in his career and he wasn’t sure why a SAFER Barrier wasn’t in position to shield the contact. The contact was so impactful that it crumpled up the usually stoic front nose and clip — a section of the car that will soon see changes meant to better protect the driver.
Not only does he plan to raise his concerns with both NASCAR and Speedway Motorsports, the company that owns Nashville Superspeedway, but Blaney was extremely pointed over the topic when released from the infield care center.
“I’m sure they’ll put one on it after this,” Blaney said. “It sucks that something like this has to happen, hitting a wall dead on like that, and then they’re like, ‘oh we’ll put a SAFER Barrier on it now,’ but why is it not already around the whole track?
“I’ll pay for the f—–g thing to get one there — it’s 30 feet.”
NASCAR provided the following statement about the incident after the race:
“NASCAR safety engineers work closely with safety experts on the implementation of barriers around the track. As we do following every race weekend, we will evaluate all available data and make any necessary improvements.”
The incident started when Brad Keselowski didn’t get up to speed on a restart in which the field was jumbled due to the previous caution taking place in the middle of green flag pit stops. Keselowski got tagged from behind by Byron to start the accordion effect. The mid-pack stacked up and Blaney got turned into the infield grass by Kyle Busch, who was himself unable to check up in time.
“I honestly thought I was going to be fine,” Blaney said. “I really thought I was going to be okay once I got past the grass, back on the asphalt. I thought I could kind of swing back around when I got off the brake. Just never did. It was just at that weird angle. I thought I could get back on the straight until the last second — just never came back.”
Blaney immediately keyed-up his radio and said that he needed help.
“It was a hard hit,” Blaney said. “I just needed a second to catch my breath. I feel fine. I just needed a second. All good.”
As part of its standard operating procedure following any crash, NASCAR will check in with Blaney the next day just in case any symptoms had developed.
While other NASCAR drivers have not yet had a chance to digest the incident immediately after the race, the fact that a car once again found even the smallest section of a track that wasn’t protected by a SAFER Barrier was cause for concern.
As a driver-owner at the highest level, Denny Hamlin has been amongst the loudest safety advocates since the advent of this new car, and says he trusts NASCAR to response to this accordingly.
“Certainly, nothing should be overlooked,” Hamlin said. “Jerry Kaproff, from NASCAR, is in charge of making sure tracks are where they need to be. Until I see it, it’s so hard to say what they should do.
“We can obviously hit the wall anywhere with these cars so nothing should be overlooked.”
For his part, Martin Truex Jr. was just surprised it happened.
“That conversation is always ongoing,” Truex said. “I’m surprised there’s one of those out there left. I’m sure it was a freak deal but there’s no reason for these cars to ever hit anything these days that’s not SAFER Barrier.”
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.