Two years ago, Ross Chastain was all the rage in the NASCAR Cup Series.
Fresh off a season in which he shocked the NASCAR world by capturing two victories and finishing a career-best second in the Cup Series standings, Chastain seemed poised to battle for wins and championships for years to come.
Then came 2023 … and 2024 … when Chastain’s star slowly started fading. Now, with the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series season just around the corner, Chastain isn’t generating nearly the buzz that he did during and in the months that followed his breakout 2022 campaign.
So, what has happened to Chastain, and why is the eighth-generation watermelon farmer no longer one of the most talked-about drivers in the NASCAR world?
Chastain’s Aggression Elevated His Profile But Damaged His Reputation
While Chastain’s on-track results in 2022 played a role in his sudden rise to NASCAR Cup Series relevance, arguably even more important was how Chastain went about achieving those results.
In short: He did it with a no-holds-barred aggression that helped fuel his success but made him no friends. Drivers who Chastain roughed up — in some cases more than once — in 2022 or the first few months of the 2023 season included two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Kyle Busch, three-time Daytona 500 champion Denny Hamlin, AJ Allmendinger, Michael McDowell, and championship-winning Hendrick Motorsports teammates Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson.
After Chastain wrecked Larson — and himself — while the two battled for the lead late in the May 2023 race at Darlington, Larson’s legendary team owner had finally seen enough.
“You don’t just run people up in the fence,” NASCAR Hall of Famer Rick Hendrick said during a postrace press conference. “It’s hard to win a championship when you’ve got a lot of paybacks [coming] out there. He’s got so much talent, I think, if he just calmed down. He’s got a lot of talent, but he’s making a lot of enemies out here. [His driving] is really getting old with these guys.”
Hendrick, owner of Chevrolet’s flagship organization, added that it made no difference to him that Chastain competed for another organization that fields cars sporting the bowtie.
“I don’t care if he’s driving a Chevrolet, if he wrecks our cars,” the 14-time NASCAR Cup Series champion team owner said. “I don’t care, and I’ve told Chevrolet that. If you wreck us, you’re going to get it back. … I’m loyal to Chevrolet but when somebody runs over us, I expect my guys to hold their ground.”
Rick Hendrick on Ross Chastain. pic.twitter.com/YURlSOtaDA
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) May 15, 2023
Chastain Has Toned It Way Down, Probably To His Own Detriment
Since drawing the ire of Hendrick, Chastain has never been quite the same. Sure, he went on to match his 2022 win total with as many victories in 2023, but he kept his nose clean on both occasions. And unlike in 2022, he missed the Championship 4 on the way to a ninth-place points finish.
Chastain made even less noise last season, steering mostly clear of controversy and failing to qualify for the playoffs on the way to finishing a disappointing 19th in the standings. His lone win — which came in the fall race at Kansas Speedway — was relatively inconsequential, as it occurred once the playoffs had commenced.
So, it was an overall uneventful 2024 for the same guy who made the Championship 4 in 2022 by doing the unthinkable when he rode the wall video game style in the final corner of the Round of 8 elimination race at Martinsville Speedway.
That move, which allowed Chastain to pass enough cars to advance, was banned later that same week by NASCAR. This despite it gaining Chastain and NASCAR national attention that extended beyond the sport and earning Chastain plaudits even from some of the drivers he’d infuriated earlier in the year.
With his most celebrated move now outlawed and his once-highly aggressive driving style condemned by the most accomplished team owner in NASCAR history, Chastain was but a shell of his 2022 and early-2023 self in 2024.
For that reason, he’ll be on virtually no one’s shortlist of NASCAR Cup Series championship contenders for the coming season. When you consider all the excitement — some good, some bad — he brought about for most all of 2022 and part of 2023, his absence from the 2025 discussion is kind of a shame.
Thankful to close out another year with @TeamTrackhouse! Appreciate everyone who supports this 1 team and helps this watermelon farmer live out his dream. Let’s have a @BuschBeer and get ready for 2025. 🍻 pic.twitter.com/c7rDmzWJai
— Ross Chastain (@RossChastain) November 12, 2024
