Ross Chastain on why you shouldn’t call him a watermelon farmer and more: 12 Questions

Each week, The Athletic asks the same 12 questions to a different race car driver. Up next: Ross Chastain of Trackhouse Racing, who heads to the street race on Naval Base Coronado this weekend having qualified inside the top five for both NASCAR road races so far this season.

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1. Do you typically arrive for things early, late or on time, and why?

On time, as much as my Uncle Richie tried to instill in all of us that on time is late, and if you’re five minutes early, you’re on time, and 10 minutes early is when you should be there. I’m pretty sure he’s fired people from the (watermelon) farm before for being on time. I think it was their last straw. He should have fired me; probably would have, if I would’ve worked on the farm my whole life.

2. What is the pettiest thing that annoys you during a race weekend?

Maybe being told I can’t turn inside the track, and they have cones and won’t let you turn a certain way, but you need to go that way. It’s like the new (diverging diamond) intersections I see in North Carolina where you have to go up, turn right, go down and make a U-turn instead of just turning left the first time.

It’s unnecessary when there’s no traffic.

Like at Michigan (which has a lot of traffic cones)?

I won’t name names. I don’t want to be called out.

3. What is something you’ve learned to stop explaining to people?

I’ll explain anything. It’s usually new people, so I’m the only common denominator. I explain watermelons all the time. But it’s not explaining. It’s enlightening. Usually teaching them something.

4. If you could go back to the early days before you reached NASCAR, what is one different decision you wish you had made?

Go to the Indy 500 (to watch). I regret it so bad, and I even had opportunities. Once I met (team owner) Chip Ganassi, I was already running Jay Robinson’s car in the 600 (on the same day), so I couldn’t have then.

But all those years before that, when I was running Trucks and O’Reilly, I wish I would’ve gone and just watched it. I have friends that still go today. They have season tickets and go every year. They invited me all those years ago and I never made it a point to go.

5. What is it like to be in a debrief after a bad race?

If there’s a mistake that was made, it doesn’t matter whose it is, it’s on the whole group. There’s north of 200 employees at Trackhouse, but it boils down to the actionable people doing things that affect the race. Yes, there can be errors where mechanical failures happen or decisions are made on Tuesday that affect Sunday. But I’m the one pushing the pedals and steering the car. Brandon (McReynolds, his spotter) is telling me clear or not clear. The other Brandon (McSwain, his crew chief) is making calls.

So the pit crew, me, one of the Brandons — whoever it is, I feel the guilt for them if they make a bad decision just as much as if I do.

But it’s always bad. Not pleasant. The worst ones are when you run into your teammates, and the owner doesn’t like that. Sometimes they see it, but when I ran into them and it was definitely my fault, and you realize it in that meeting, that’s (when) I wish I could crawl under the table.

6. I’m asking each person a pair of wild card questions: One about the past and one about the present. In terms of the past, you took an unconventional route to make it to NASCAR and had to grind to get to the top level. Is your path to Cup still a viable path for somebody today?

I think it’s definitely there. It’s not the path for most people. Very, very few I see will take it.

An example right now is Anthony Alfredo. He’s grinding. Then he gets the opportunity at Phoenix in the 48 (substituting for Alex Bowman at Hendrick Motorsports). Under that caution before he crashed — because of me being hit by Joey (Logano) — I pulled up and gave him a thumbs up. We were both on strategy and going to restart in the front couple rows.

I was like, “Man, if he gets clear of me or right behind me and we run top five, he’s got the pace and ability to do it.” Unfortunately, we didn’t make it through the frontstretch, and I crashed into him. It’s so ironic because I was rooting for him for that to go well.

But he continues to grind. He showed up the next week back in his O’Reilly car. You see him making speed in that car. He puts in the work during the week socially and behind the scenes with the sim stuff at Chevy.

It takes being comfortable knowing the end has no end. I didn’t know if the grind would ever end and get me where I wanted to go. For Anthony, you see him continuing to show up. There are a couple other drivers doing it that way too. But it’s not pretty.

7. You’re a principal of the Motorsports Management International agency and play a big role there. How did you develop an interest in driver management and become involved with MMI?

A selfish decision. I wanted good people surrounding me.

Spire Sports and Entertainment were a big part of getting me into the (Chip Ganassi Racing) family and getting me in front of Chip and (former sponsor) DC Solar. We committed to each other that we were going to get to Cup together, and we got there.

Then the charter situation happened. They built a team, got competitive and started winning races. They wanted to focus on that.

A lot of drivers were confused about how a team and an agency could be one and the same. I wanted to keep a couple of the core people; I wanted them waking up every day with my best interests in mind. I was willing to absorb them onto my team personally, and then if they could help other drivers, great. We already had people in the pipeline we wanted to help that Spire had been helping.

So it started with a selfish decision to keep my group together. I see value in helping other people, but I’m not in the trenches with them. They’re the ones with lawyers and contracts and protecting drivers. I needed that. It just so happens we’ve been able to keep it all going.

Can you separate that from racing against those drivers you represent, like Carson Hocevar and Kaden Honeycutt?

When I’m in the race, I could not care less about them. You’ve seen Kaden mad at me. You’ve seen Carson mad at me. You’ve seen me mad at both of them — maybe more one than the other.

When I’m in the race, nope. That will never go away. That’s for MMI to handle later if there’s an issue. When I’m not in the race, yeah, I root for them. I’m a fan of the sport.

8. If you could get any driver’s helmet in the history of motorsports, whose would it be?

I don’t do helmet swaps. I don’t really know why. I should do that.

I’ve always wanted an open-face helmet. I never got to race with one in a stock car. Give me a No. 8 red Budweiser Dale Jr. open-face helmet with the big boom mic. I want one of those.

9. When things are not going well, do you prefer people leave you alone or check in on you?

Not necessary. You can send it or not send it. I might respond. I might not. I’m not very good at that.

If it’s my Memaw or Mimi or my mom or somebody in my family? Sure, call. But call, though (instead of text). My dad has gotten pretty good at timing his calls after races.

He knows the cadence. If we ran good, it takes longer to get out of there. If we crashed early, I’m probably already headed to the airport. He’ll call and say, “Well, that wasn’t good.” I’ll say, “Nope.” Then I’ll ask how many buses (of watermelons) they got today.

He’ll start talking about the farm — if it rained, if the fruit was big.

I’d rather get updated on the farm than sit there and sulk and listen to music.

So he’s not really calling to debrief the race.

No. He wants to talk about racing, but I don’t. And if it’s a bad day at the farm, he doesn’t want to talk about the farm either. I’d rather somebody call and talk about something else than the race. I don’t need to talk about the race. I know what happened.

10. What is something about yourself that would surprise people who think they “know” you?

I’m not actually a farmer. I’m the son of a farmer. Brother of a farmer. I don’t live at the farm.

I moved to North Carolina in January of 2012. Moved into Bobby Dotter’s shop, drove up through the night and lived in the apartment upstairs. Committed to racing.

I go back to the farm in the offseason. I used to go back more during the season when I wasn’t full-time. I don’t have a house in Florida. I live there some in the offseason, but not much.

11. What is something you laugh about now that was absolutely not funny at the time?

I got a tractor stuck as a kid. My Uncle Doug told me not to go near this one spot in the field. I went too close to the water and got it stuck. He drove up, handed me a shovel and drove away. He came back two hours later, but he made me sit out there.

I did try to dig it out. There was no way I was digging that tractor out. Big old Kubota. Not happening. And it was operator error why it was stuck.

12. Each week, I ask a driver to give me a question for the next person. The last one was with Alex Bowman and he says: “I want the origin story of smashing the watermelon. Did he do it growing up racing? Did he just start doing it when he got to NASCAR? What prompted wanting to do it? Did he practice doing it to see how hard he had to throw it? How long was there a watermelon on the truck before the watermelon really got smashed? What other times has he smashed a watermelon?”

The first smash was at Las Vegas after the Xfinity win in 2018. Had no plans to smash it. We knew we wanted to hold it up in victory lane, so you see me holding it up like Simba in “The Lion King.”

Then I sat it down and carried it to the media center. Somebody asked what I was going to do with it. That’s when we went out on the frontstretch around sunset and smashed it.

But we’d carried watermelons to the track for years before that. At short tracks, we’d bring them, but never smash them. We’d just use them to remind people about watermelons. Marketing, right?

So it was a spur-of-the-moment thing. Honestly, I was worried my grandfather would be upset. He grew up in a time when you didn’t waste food. If you threw food on the ground at Granddaddy’s house, you’d be in big trouble.

I called him about an hour later (after the first smash) and told him what happened. They looked it up on Facebook and saw it. He was super excited. He said we’d never know how many people saw watermelons that day and how many extra got sold.

The next interview is with Erik Jones. Do you have a question I could ask him?

How did you and (MMI driver agent) Phillip Smalley meet, and how long before you realized he would become your undercover Facebook Marketplace buyer?