NASCAR notebook: Ross Chastain all smiles in Nashville

Last week’s Coca-Cola 600 race winner Ross Chastain arrived for his Nashville Superspeedway press conference Saturday still wearing a smile — and his winner’s ring — from last Sunday’s victory at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

The 32-year-old Floridian turned in one of the most dramatic wins in recent history in the sport’s longest race, rallying from last place on the grid (40th) to Victory Lane. Chastain beamed acknowledging the ring on his finger, and said it was purposeful — providing continued motivation in a season that he hopes kicks into gear now at the official midpoint of the regular-season calendar and at a track where he’s won before (2023).

“We have a ‘first win’ ring that we had made at Trackhouse from COTA,” Chastain said of his first career NASCAR Cup Series win at the Austin, Texas, road course.

“(Former team owner) Matt Kaulig had win rings made from Daytona in the Xfinity series and now this one. It’s a pretty cool collection. I’m not a big ring guy. I’m not a jewelry guy. But these just have so much meaning in it. It says ‘Champion’ and it says, ‘Coca-Cola 600 2025.’

“Definitely going to take it off now for practice,” he continued. “But it has been motivation this week because this week was a grind. And sometimes I just had to touch the ring and be like — OK, smile, go to the next thing, make the next flight, get home, like all the stuff.”

With the victory, Chastain has now earned his entry into the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs. It marked only the third top-five showing of the season for the No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet team, but the second in three races after Chastain’s runner-up effort in Texas. The win moves Chastain up to eighth place in the championship standings, one of eight drivers with a victory through the first 13 races.

–Ranked fourth in the NASCAR Cup Series championship standings, Chase Elliott has certainly established himself best among those drivers without a win. But for the driver of the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, that is not enough.

Two of his Hendrick teammates, William Byron and Kyle Larson, are leading the rankings. Consistency has certainly been key to Elliott’s season with seven top-10 and three top-five finishes through the opening 13 races. His best effort has been fourth place — at both COTA and Martinsville.

He has been particularly good at this week’s Nashville concrete 1.33-miler winning the race in 2022 and scoring a fourth-place finish there in 2023. Looking ahead to next week at Michigan, Elliott has an impressive 10 top-10 finishes — including three runner-up efforts — in 14 starts.

“I thought we had a really good car last week at Charlotte,” Elliott said. “I think it’s a product of a lot of hard work and just a collective effort of trying to make some improvement. That’s always the goal, just keep chipping away. I think the team is in a really good spot.”

Elliott knows he’s in a good place points standings-wise, but the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series champion and perennial Most Popular Driver isn’t satisfied with “pointing” his way into a title run. His last victory came a year ago at Texas Motor Speedway.

“Certainly better to be in that position than on the other side of the fence, no doubt,” Elliott said of his points position. “But I’d be lying if I said that was my top focus. It’s just not. I think that if you’re worried about barely getting into the playoffs, I think you have some work to do.

“It really is kind of the best way I can think about that. And just to talk about my thought process, I want to be better than that. I want to be in the group of people of how many playoff points do you have, not just barely getting in. Our expectations and goals are above that, and we hope that we can achieve all of our goals.”

–Roush-Fenway-Keselowski Racing owner and driver Brad Keselowski is fresh off his best finish of the year in the No. 6 Ford Mustang — a fifth place run at Charlotte, where his five laps out front marked the first laps he’s led this season.

Amazingly, the effort was the 2012 NASCAR Cup Series champion’s best work since an 11th-place showing at Las Vegas in March. While he didn’t celebrate in victory lane, he got a lot closer and that is something he hopes his team can build off.

“Just trying not to do too much, we’re hitting our stride as an organization particularly with the six-team,” said Keselowski, who is ranked 32nd in the championship standings and hoping to earn a Playoff berth with a victory. His last win came last spring at Darlington, S.C.

“The cars are developing more speed. Our execution’s getting better. It’s an exciting time for us outside of looking where we are in the points standings. We need to build off of that and incrementally inch our way toward being able to win and I think we’re really close to that right now.

“Last week was a really positive moment for us. The last run of the race we passed at least a half dozen cars and ran the fastest laps and did all the things that make you feel like you can go win.”

Keselowski has never scored a top 10 at Nashville in four NASCAR Cup Series starts at the track. He heads next week to his home state, Michigan, where he has 15 top-10 finishes in 27 starts, including three runner-up finishes. He has finished top-10 in three of the last four races there.

“Last year, I don’t think we had as much pace but were getting good finishes,” he added. “We have more potential now but didn’t have the execution we had last year. I’m just eager to get the execution to match the potential.”

–Ty Dillon’s grandfather Richard Childress was a longtime dear friend and championship car owner for the late, NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Sr. When asked if Dillon had watched any of the well-received and recently released Amazon Prime documentary “Earnhardt,” he conceded he hasn’t had a chance yet, but smiled recalling some fond memories he shared with the great champion.

“I was very young at that time, but I just knew Dale (Earnhardt Sr.) from my perspective as a guy that when we were little and we were at the racetrack, he would come and bug my brother (Austin) and I, whether it was pinching us behind the neck or grabbing us as hard as he could to get our attention,” Dillon said.

“And we didn’t really like that. We were kind of scared of him. But man, we grew up every weekend, and where Dale finished determined our week. We got pizza if Dale won, so that was a celebration in our house.”

Dillon, driver of the No. 10 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet, is making his first NASCAR Cup Series start at Nashville since 2023 when he led four laps but finished 32nd. He is ranked 31st in the championship standings.

“Just knowing that kind of perspective after being in sport as a driver myself was crazy,” Dillon said of the Earnhardt docuseries. “But the impact (Earnhardt) had on my grandfather, my family, and everybody at RCR, and what that has become because of him and my grandfather’s relationship, obviously means so much to myself and our family and everybody in sport.

“He was a giant in our sport and a legend. It’s just awesome that we continue to talk about him, and the documentary continues to bring his name to the light because he has done so much for what the sport is.”

–Ryan Truex will be trackside this weekend for Joe Gibbs Racing, ready to serve as a relief driver for Denny Hamlin should Hamlin’s fiance, Jordan, go into labor with their third child.

–By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service. Special to Field Level Media.