1999 Cup Champ Reminded of His Jeff Gordon Upset After Ross Chastain’s Nashville Turnaround

Chastain’s triumph at Nashville was a tough one. While exchanging leads with the Joe Gibbs Racing duo, who led 131 laps at the weekend, he had to endure it all. And the long wait for a win since Talladega in 2022 only makes it much more special for Ross Chastain.

The 30-year-old’s victory was proper entertainment. So much so that the 1999 Cup Series champion Dale Jarrett was left in awe of Chastain’s performance as he reminisces his battles with 4-time champion Jeff Gordon. Speaking on NASCAR on NBC podcast, the former Robert Yates Racing driver goes into Chastain’s racing strategy and how he held his own amid the pressure.

Seeing Him Race, Dale Jarrett Has a Suggestion for Ross Chastain

Starting off the conversation, Jarrett takes the first chance to thank the weather gods for not sending any rain in Nashville’s way. ” Never happened, thank goodness. With it starting that early, I think the drivers that were on the tighter side were able to be comfortable in their cars.”

Seeing the intense battle on the track with Truex and Hamlin on Ross’ tail, Jarrett said that the emphasis should be on slowing things down and finding your comfort zone. He said, “And I think what they wanted Ross to do is just be comfortable with what you’re doing there. But then they had a plan to adjust the car and they made a couple of adjustments at the end of stage 1.”

“In the next pit stop, they made another adjustment to his car. I think that is really whenever they started feeling that they were getting the grip from the track they were looking for. Now they needed to make the car to fit that in. Maybe they’ve been a bit behind on some and I think Ross when they had good cars wasn’t giving them information to make changes because the car is good. I could relate to that really easy.”

As a result of the adjustments, Chastain came out of the weekend with a race-high 99 laps led. But we’re sure Chastain made himself more than comfortable with his watermelon smash celebration. ‘The Melon Man ‘ truly knows how to celebrate.

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Jeff Gordon is an unmatched phenomenon in NASCAR. Safe to say there will never be another to match Gordon’s enigma. It seems Jarrett himself has been a victim to Gordon’s streak of success. Talking about the duels with him in their racing days, he brings back memories of dominating a race yet losing out on the trophy.

“I can remember Rockingham many years ago. I would lead a lot of laps and Jeff Gordon would beat my tail at the end.”

He then gravitates back to the issue of finding a driver’s groove on the track. Acclimatizing to changes in the midst of a race can be an important asset to any driver. They can potentially change races with minor tweaks to the vehicle. Truex’s victory at Dover is an excellent example of the same.

“But I wanted an adjustment on my car and finally after like the second time, I’m not that fast of a learner but I said, I’m gonna adjust on my car. If I get it off a little bit, then, we can always go back to what we had. Then to make it as good as we can get. And I think that’s something that Ross has mentioned that he wants to do a better job and looks like they did that last night.”

Coming back to the point of comfort, Truex was the driver who was found switching to the back because of excessive dirty air influence on the track. Chastain used the adjustments to exactly get him the boost that he envisioned. Reflecting on the same, Jarrett adds, “He needed every bit of speed that he had to keep Martin Truex Jr back there.”

“I mean, Martin can make him run. But Ross never varied from what he was doing and just stuck to his guns. He knew that if he didn’t give Martin that out side groove that he was gonna be able to hold him back there. Because Truex even if is as good as his car was, I think his car tightened up a bit in the center. He complained about the center being really tight and then he was looser on the edge.”

Truex has also revealed his feelings about the race and spoken about how they could have got more out of it. Aiming to get another victory, Truex will look to maintain his good run of performances.

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