Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
Ross Chastain has not made many friends on the race track since joining Trackhouse Racing but his success has been clearly elevated since making the move. Chastain, who drove for Chip Ganassi Racing before the team sold its operations, has elevated himself to a championship competitor.
The 30-year-old driver has two wins since the start of the 2022 season but hasn’t won a race in over one year. However, Chastain leads the point standings over Joe Gibbs Racing driver Christopher Bell by 31 points through 12 races in 2023.
This has not come without controversy as Chastain has had issues with Denny Hamlin, Alex Bowman, Daniel Suarez, Christopher Bell, Kyle Larson, Brennan Poole, and Noah Gragson in 2023 alone. With all of that being said, Chastain did speak about the incident with Gragson in Kansas.
Related: Noah Gragson says Chase Elliott encouraged him to fight Ross Chastain at Kansas
Gragson had every reason to be upset after the No. 1 car became the reason why his stellar day at Kansas Speedway was ruined. On the other hand, Chastain had every reason to believe that it was not his fault.
Chastain didn’t make any contact with the No. 42 car but he didn’t give him much space exiting Turn 4. This made Gragson hit the wall and he showed his displeasure to Chastain when the two went down the front stretch.
The rookie NASCAR Cup Series driver confronted Chastain after the race by putting his hands on him. Then, the Trackhouse Racing driver swung at Gragson and chaos ensued. It definitely got NASCAR back in the spotlight as two of its most aggressive drivers made some noise.
Chastain went on The Pat McAfee Show on Thursday afternoon to talk about the incident with Gragson. Surprisingly, it seems like things between the two drivers are much better than they were on pit road in Kansas.
“(Noah Gragson) and I have known each other for several years. We train together, we prepare together. We’ve been in separate series for a little bit. Now, we’re both in the (NASCAR Cup Series), exactly where we want to be. So we’re both trying to prove ourselves. We’re both trying to get to where we want to be and stay here in the Cup Series. It’s not easy. There’s only 36 seats. So we’re good…
We talked on Monday on the phone, and then we were together testing some micro sprint cars Monday night. We worked out together this week. It’s good. It’s done and over with, and we’ve been able to move on and laugh about it now. But we weren’t exactly laughing on Sunday.”
Ross Chastain on his relationship with Noah Gragson
As stated above, Chastain and Gragson are two of NASCAR’s most aggressive drivers and it is good that they have talked it over. There have been some occasions in the past where two drivers sour on each other due to the on-track behavior.
While Gragson may not give Chastain much room moving forward, the two drivers appear to be OK off the race track now. Many people most likely didn’t expect it to play out like this but the two of them are friends.
Chastain will continue to push for his first Cup Series race victory of the 2023 season while Gragson returns to one of his best tracks in NASCAR at Darlington Raceway for Throwback Weekend.
In the meantime, whether you are watching it live or looking for how to watch NASCAR on TV or another streaming platform, Sportsnaut has you covered for the upcoming weekend at Darlington Raceway!