Carson Hocevar’s aggressive driving style had been the talk of the town. But while a huge majority of the grid is dealing with that, memories are creeping up of Ross Chastain in 2023. 

Chastain was a dominant force in 2023, but a string of incidents meant people at Hendrick Motorsports weren’t happy with the Trackhouse driver. Chastain was involved in three back-to-back incidents that ruined Kyle Larson’s race, and Rick Hendrick was fuming. 

While many feel Chastain has cooled off ever since, Dale Jr believes otherwise. Speaking on his podcast, Dale Jr. said that he didn’t believe that Chastain had changed at all. 

“Everybody believes that after Darlington and Rick Hendrick got in Ross’s ear that it really changed him. Not how it works, it’s not easy to have a conversation from Rick when he’s like stop doing it. You stop doing it. He stopped running Rick’s cars.”

But Dale Jr then explained the hidden strategy of Chastain behind all this.

“That didn’t change him as a race car driver. Ross Chastain is still Ross Chastain. He’s still that same guy. He’s just decided, look when my car aint good enough, I’m not gonna create problems for myself.

"Wait till his car gets good again. When his cars are good, it’s gonna be the same overall.”

Dale Jr said that Chastain was smart enough not to be in the news for any reason when his car wasn’t as good as the others'. 

Backstory to Chastain’s conversation with Rick Hendrick

Driving for Trackhouse Racing, the 2023 version of Ross Chastain was an aggressive one. No driver got space, and most drivers were unhappy with the moves Chastain attempted. Then came a string of races where Chastain impacted Kyle Larson. 

It started in Talladega, where Chastain’s aggression in an overtime restart triggered chaos that ended with Larson being t-boned by Ryan Preece. In the following race at Dover, Chastain made contact with the lapped car of Brendan Poole, which then spun and took out Larson. 

The breaking point came in Darlington, where Chastain and Larson were fighting for the lead, and Chastain pressed the HMS driver towards the wall before both cars crashed into the wall. Chastain finished in 20th, and Larson finished in 29th. 

HMS founder Rick Hendrick was furious and had a call with Chastain explaining that he won’t be able to win championships if he keeps taking out drivers and making enemies of them, because the list of people who wanted to pay him back was growing. 

Chastain hasn’t had an incident with a Henrick car since. 

Read more at the RFK Racing Digest!

Written by

Debrup Chaudhuri

Edited by

Suyashdeep Sason