The grand scale of Chicago is a far cry from bucolic Alva, Florida, but Ross Chastain is embracing his racing experience in The Windy City.
Invigorated by his victory last Sunday at Nashville Superspeedway, Chastain comes to Chicago with a confident mindset balanced by a total lack of experience on a street course.
The driver of the No. 1 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet knows he must temper his aggressive tendencies in Sunday’s Grant Park 220 (5 p.m. ET on NBC, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
Chastain glibly admitted he had crashed in all 12 corners of the Chicago Street Course when he ran computer simulations of the track. In the simulator, there is no price to pay for a wreck. On the real pavement, the penalty can be catastrophic.
“There’s no runoff,” Chastain said Friday. “There’s no room for error. Virtually, you can go and prepare and still attack and crash on our simulators, but when you get in the car, it’s going to all close in, and that’s what they keep saying. So I’m just taking the approach that I know it’s going to feel terrible in terms of wall proximity, because I know the penalty in practice and qualifying and in the race is really big.
“The moment I break traction, I’m not going to wonder if I’m going to hit the wall for very long, because the wall is right there. The biggest thing is just mentally trying to balance aggression for lap time and the penalty of overstepping that aggression and hitting the wall. That’s really been my focus all week.”
