Q. You said you thought about that move before today. How did you dream up that scenario, what you needed to do and that it would work?
ROSS CHASTAIN: Oh, played a lot of NASCAR 2005 on the game cube with Chad growing up. You can get away with it. I never knew if it would actually work.
I mean, I did that when I was eight years old. I grabbed fifth gear, asked off of two on the last lap if we needed it, and we did. I couldn’t tell who was leading. I made the choice, grabbed fifth gear down the back. Full committed. Basically let go of the wheel, hoping I didn’t catch the turn four access gate or something crazy. But I was willing to do it.
For this Trackhouse group, we’ve done everything. We did so much right this year, for Advent Health, the Moose, Jockey, to lose Rob this year, we got a rose riding with is, right, an angel overhead. I thought about that for a long time.
Today for our Moose Chevy, we didn’t have what we needed. Just glad we could do whatever we could do. A great pit stop on the last stop to put us in position to even be close enough by our guys, our pit crew, our guys are incredible. All we asked for is a chance.
Q. We’ve talked about how this Trackhouse team is a relative upstart with big goals. I know this was a goal of your team, to have an opportunity to race for a championship. What does this mean to you?
ROSS CHASTAIN: Well, I hope everybody remembers that two years ago in the fall of 2020, I went down to the Southern 500 with Spire Motorsports. It was a big deal for us to race with sticker tires on. We had a podcast sponsoring the car. It was a big deal to beat one car. Single-digit laps down. That was two years ago at the Southern 500. To be here fighting for a championship now, it’s so surreal.
When I make mistakes on track, I hope everybody remembers two years ago I was out here seven laps down. Now Trackhouse, Chip Ganassi last year giving me an opportunity there in the 42, Doug Duchardt, everybody there.
Ty Norris and Justin Marks and Pitbull to have this vision give Daniel and I everything we need. Daniel Suarez, an incredible teammate.
I just can’t not believe that we have a chance to go fight for a championship. All we ask for is a chance. We kept our world small this year so far. We’ll do the same thing going to Phoenix.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
