NEWTON, Iowa – Ross Chastain knows every time the NASCAR Xfinity Series heads to Iowa Speedway for a standalone event that it’s a chance for he and his JD Motorsports team to shine, and they did just that for the second year in a row on Saturday afternoon.
Chastain tied his career-best finish of fourth, set at the seven-eighths-mile oval last year, in the U.S. Cellular 250 despite not running inside the top 10 for most of the race. He finished outside the top 10 in both of the first two stages, and it wasn’t until inside of 75 to go that the No. 4 Chevrolet Camaro came to life.
The Florida native and watermelon farmer started the final stage from the outside of row six in 12th and methodically worked his way forward as his competition gradually faded. Chastain cracked the top 10 inside of 80 to go and held a top-10 running position despite a late round of green-flag pit stops.
Chastain was 10th when what appeared to be the final caution flag of the day flew with seven laps left, coincidentally for a spin by his teammate Garrett Smithley in turn three. That incident set up the first of two overtime periods, in which Chastain lined up eighth after a handful of drivers pitted in the final laps.
A hard crash on the restart between Max Tullman and Matt Tifft led to a 17-minute red flag and even more chaos when the green flag waved over the second and final overtime sprint of the day. Chastain gridded up fourth in the outside lane and soared around several top contenders around him, climbing up four more positions before the checkered flag was displayed.
Chastain attributed his strong run to the equipment he was provided by his Johnny Davis-led crew, which has routinely gone to bat against the bigger-money, Cup Series-backed operations in the Xfinity Series over the past several years.
“Saturday was so much fun because good race cars are hard to come by at this level, but dang did we have one in that race!” Chastain said. “On those long runs, it was so much fun to search around for grip after about 40 laps on the tires! I enjoyed it a ton. I feel like we had (and showed) eighth-place speed straight up … and made it to fourth at the end with all the shenanigans, which was pretty dang cool.”
Saturday’s finish marked Chastain’s second top-five finish in the Xfinity Series and his fifth top-10 this season. He also extended his hold on the 12th and final berth on the provisional playoff grid, moving to 40 points ahead of Ryan Sieg in the race to make the postseason.
Though John Hunter Nemechek sits only five points back of Chastain in the driver standings, because Nemechek is only running a part-time schedule, he doesn’t factor into the race to the playoffs.
Chastain hasn’t been thinking about all of that that this year, though, nor was he hyper-focused on his final result on Saturday.
“I just want to run well, you know?” Chastain told SPEED SPORT earlier in the season. “If we’re competitive, that’s plenty enough for me. It doesn’t matter whether it’s here at Iowa, at Daytona … wherever we go to, if we’re competitive, then that’s a good day and something we can be proud of.
“When people ask me what my goals are with this team, that’s what I’ve been saying.”
Chastain has also made 18 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series starts this season with Premium Motorsports, something he cited as being “huge” for his development as a driver.
“There’s no substitute for seat time,” noted Chastain. “The more you get a feel for how to run these race tracks, the better you are, and I feel like I’ve been able to show that this year. It’s definitely helped my ability to move forward on the late-race restarts … even though I’ve overdriven the car at some points and crashed a few times that maybe I shouldn’t have tried to get quite so much out of it.
“We were a top-10 car this time, though, which I thought was really cool. I knew we had to get going on the last one. It all worked out.”
