Bear Grease - Ep. 382: Render - Ross Chastain: Watermelon Farmer and NASCAR Driver

Episode Date: October 29, 2025

In this episode of The Bear Grease Render, host Clay Newcomb sits down with six-time NASCAR Cup winner Ross Chastain to explore his unexpected journey from 8th generation watermelon farmer to professional stock car driver. They dive into Ross’s passion for hunting, the lessons he’s learned along the way, and the story behind his iconic “wall ride.” If you have comments on the show, send us a note to [e-mail] Connect with Clay and MeatEater Clay on Instagram MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Shop Bear Grease MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. First Lights fieldware collection is made for the work that happens long before opening day and continues when the season ends. Products built for early mornings, full days in real use. Hard wearing where they need to be versatile where it matters. No shortcuts. Just gear designed for the work that earns the season.

Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new field. Worldware Gear at firstlight.com. My name is Clay Newcomb, and this is a production of the Bear Grease podcast called the Bear Grease Render, where we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the scenes of the actual Bear Grease podcast. Presented by FHF Gear, American made, purpose-built, hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the places we explore. So we're in Charlotte, North Carolina. Concord, technically.

Concord, North Carolina. About 20 miles northeast. A suburb of Charlotte, North Carolina. Yes. At the track house race team, global headquarters. Huge facility. Unbelievable. Yeah.

For NASCAR, this is where all the magic happens. All of our cars come out of here. We come back with our semi-haulers here every week before headed out of the next race. Man, I mean, we just got here. I've been with you for a few days here. I'm astonished. I'm with Ross Chastain, who told me not to say this,

but I'm going to say it. Six-time cup winner, NASCAR Cup winner. Yes, technically, as we were trying to get how you would introduce me, we have won six cup races in the number one car for trackhouse racing. So that goes back to our very first win

as a team in 2022 at Circuit of the Americas down in Austin, Texas, and my most recent win was the Coca-Cola 600 this year on Memorial Day Sunday. That means these really good folks, just in case you weren't able to interpret that. That means that you're good. So Ross and I have been together. We've been deer hunting in Georgia. Yeah.

We've had a good time. So you're a NASCAR driver. But what is the second thing that you would introduce yourself, Probably the first thing that you would introduce yourself as is a... Watermelon farmer. Where's our watermelon? I know. We forgot it.

It's in your truck. It is. We've had a watermelon that we've been carrying around through multiple states that we were supposed to have here. It is. But you're a... Eighth generation watermelon farmer. Yeah, so I'm really the son of a farmer. Like, I use that as a term of endearment.

Like, that is I'm proud to say that. You know, the term son of a... usually doesn't have a good ending. Mine is a good ending. I'm proud to be the son of a farmer. I'm the brother of a farmer, the cousin of a farmer. So my job is to tell the story of agriculture.

I'm not the one out in the field. I can show you the field. I've grown up in these fields. Right. But day in and day out, my job is right here at trackhouse racing. But that would have been your trajectory if you hadn't been a phenom racer as a kid

and turned into this NASCAR driver. So there's, as I've learned, there's a lot of different great ways to get into NASCAR, but at the end of the day, there's only like 40 guys in the world that get to race NASCAR. Is that about right? Yeah, guaranteed 36 cars are going to start every race. That's part of our charter system, which is a bit of an uproar right now with lawsuits and teams fighting NASCAR and the courts are involved. But right now, the way it stands, 36 cars will start every race in the Cup series.

And then there's up to four more spots, up to 40. A specialty can be 41. We can run an extra car if the situation is right and everybody agrees. But it definitely is a very exclusive group. It's similar to a single position in a football team, right? There's only so many quarterbacks. Really, that's that even though each team has several in the lineup, like as backups, we have three cars that operate out of this shop.

this year our reserve driver has been Connor Zillich who is now being promoted into the third car starting next season for his first full-time cup entry so yes my path was as a kid I followed in my dad's footsteps the sugar sand of south Florida and the watermelon fields that we grow in you leave a print when you walk everything tire tracks animal tracks everything your boots So I would, as a kid, walk and have to jump. I usually had like rubber boots on those black rubber boots with the orange bottoms. As a kid, I loved those things. And I would jump to follow my dad into my head.

I thought that was following in my dad's footsteps. So you actually heard somebody say that phrase, he's following his dad's footsteps. You actually took that literally. I tried to do it. I did it. And I would jump. And I wanted to be like my dad. my granddaddy, my great-grandfather, Cicero, before that.

So it just didn't work out. I fell in love with racing at 12 years old. Never had a thought. I never had a belief that it would work, that NASCAR would work for me. You don't start when you're 12 and have a realistic dream to become one of 36 drivers in the world. A lot of people do. A lot of people that I raced against told us.

Well, a lot of people that's unreal. It doesn't happen. Right. Be like a kid wanting to play NBA and not being able to do it. Right. but they have that dream and they work towards it. And there was kids working towards that in 2007, racing against me in southwest Florida.

I'm the only one they got here. Like, some of them were better than me. But the way the business side works, the way I think that the work ethic that my family instilled in me to just keep getting up and going at it, I spent years to get here. When people, they'll give me a hard time because, like, my calendar's pretty full.

I'm kind of down to the minute on race day, uh, things. Even during the week, there's a lot of nights I'm not at home. I tell them, I worked really hard to be this busy. I wasn't always this busy. I worked and built this brand and built this life and career. But that wasn't at 12. That really got serious when I was 18. Yeah. Well, the more I've seen the inside of this, I mean, you are a professional athlete. you're handled like a professional athlete. But, I mean, now that I think about it, we're big NBA fans.

Not big NBA. We're lower tier serious NBA fans. And at any given time in the NBA, I don't know, a couple hundred players, maybe more than that. And so when I think about what you're doing, you're one of 40, 36 that are in NASCAR. And so I want to explain NASCAR just a little bit because I have not, I'm new to NASCAR, new to understanding how it works. And so NASCAR is the North American Stock Car Association something.

NASCAR stands for North American Stock Car. I'm not sure what the AR at the end stands. You're close. What is it? It's the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing. Okay. NASCAR. Okay, got it. I also think they went, that's a nice car.

And someone said, let's call it that. NASCAR. It works. It rolls off the tongue. It does. And that is the premier stock car racing series in the world for fenders, for fendered cars. You have open wheel with Indy car here in America, North America, and then you've got Formula One, which races across the globe. That is not anything like what we do.

We are a Florida-owned company. The league is owned up by a family and, well, day. Daytona Beach, Florida, the France family, they've built this. I mean, they had a lot of help. They've built this sport. They built their brand. And they own the track. They own about half the tracks. They work with the Smith family on the others. There's a couple of private tracks. But they have built a world that has provided a life for so many of us. And I'm selfishly one of them that has benefited from NASCAR beyond my wildest dreams. This shop wouldn't be here. This was formerly a different named shop.

This was Chip Gannasi racing. Chip Gnassi is a guy out of Pittsburgh, has an IndyCar team, is winning all of the IndyCar championships right now. Races over there. Win sports car races has over the years operated this team. It was his time to get out, and now Justin Marks is our owner in trackhouse racing. So it's crazy to think about the life I've been able to build in the sport, and I couldn't do it without the league, NASCAR, the France family. And their thought process and how they built it decades ago. We're over 75 years old as a league.

But for the chastains, we were watermelon farmers that fell in love with racing at our local short track. And we have grown all the way into the Cup Series where we've now won races. It's incredible. So you just were a gifted racer and a driver as a kid. And then you just started winning. Like I heard your dad talking, I met your dad. spend a little bit of time with him. And you just started winning.

And so it was like you just kind of kept inching up in competition until you got to the top of kind of the, I don't know if it would be amateur. You got to the top and there was nowhere else to go but to the big leagues. I mean, and so, and what's interesting to me is that as we've seen, there's different pathways where that happens with people. Some people are born into it. I mean, like, even I know about Dale Jr. And phenomenal racer and everything I know about him, like he wouldn't just given that. But, you know, his dad was like one of the most famous guys ever.

But so there's different pathways to get into this. And I think your pathway is unique and cool. How many other guys would have been like that in the circuit that would have just kind of started from really zero? I mean, there's, there's a good mix. Yeah, well, we all, I don't think that any driver in the Cup series just woke up one day and they themselves, if they're there currently, they didn't wake up and say, I want to be a NASCAR. They were molded by somebody. Somebody introduced them to the sport. It's no different than outdoors. It's definitely not different than agriculture. Somebody has to lay the groundwork for you. And I think that that's a continual, it's like a bright spot to spotlight about like human beings. we we try to make it better for the next group.

Now there is that cycle of like hard times, create hard people, which create soft people, which create bad times, which create hard times. It's like, you know, that could be a cycle,

but in the right frame of mind, in the right circumstances, people can make it better for the next generation. They can leave a piece of land better for the next generation than they found it. And that's through land management and a lot of stuff on the agriculture or hunting side. But in racing,

I'd say it's a good mix. There's racers with, names, Elliot Blaney, that you know. Like, you just know that name because there was somebody that raced before them. Nobody knew who the last name Larson was before Kyle got to the sport. Nobody know who the last name Chastain was. Nobody knew who the last name Suarez was until he got here, came to the States and chased a dream of racing in the professional American League of NASCAR coming in from Monterey, Mexico. So I'd say it's a mix.

I don't know what the percentages are, but it's a good mix. Yeah, yeah. And so part of the reason, oh, man, there's so many different things I want to talk to you about. We're going to start with watermelons. Your family, the chastain name, like inside the watermelon world, y'all are supplying most of the East Coast with watermelons that you're broker. basically, growing but also brokering. Is that right?

Yes, sir. Yeah, so our ag story goes way back. The first, just like a quick story is the first chastain came over from France in 1700. On a big ship with a bunch of people, they were part of a religious group, some sort of a Huguenot.

I'm a little fuzzy on all those details, but they landed and had a track of land outside of Richmond up the river that they were given if they would come homestead. And from there, they had to start growing food to survive. So they did. And then they started going south. I don't know if it was too cold. What story was they went into South Carolina and then into Georgia, Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia. And they were there until the 1950s. And that's where it becomes very clear because my grandfather was born and raised in O'Claughtney, Georgia, near Thomasville. It's kind of due north of Tallahassee, Florida. And that was not a good life.

but we can go back eight generations for my brother, Chad and I, and track the watermelon specifically. They were farming the whole time. You had to. It was just the way the world was. And we've been fortunate enough to stay in it. And my great-grandfather, Cicero, moved the family to South Florida in the 50s after my grandfather graduated high school. They were down there about a year. And my grandfather and my great-uncle, his brother, they enlisted in the service because life wasn't even that good in South Florida. Now you try to do that. traded gnats for mosquitoes, and it was hot. They went into the service skinny, came out a lot fatter.

They had three meals a day. They had... They were like, this is alive. Amazing. So looking back at that, those times in South Georgia, they were growing watermelons, but they were not the early ones. They weren't for domestically in the States. Watermills were coming out of Florida, getting the good market, good price per pound.

And then as it would come north, they got paid a lot less. and my great-grandfather was looking at that and ended up moving the family south. And so we've got to go for that earlier crop. And that's where it flourished. Just the weather, just being able to grow. They were chasing the best watermelon crop possible to, I mean, it was financial. I mean, they were trying to make it living. But they were not going to be able to stay in ag, stay in farming in South Georgia the way it was going.

It just wasn't, they were not the good old days. and that's where my grandmother and grandfather end up meeting and our family has flourished and we're all in a small pocket down there near Fort Myers West Florida. And then we've partnered with other people. My uncle decided to partner with like-minded people met Hamilton Dix out of South Carolina

and John Lepid out of the northeast up in New Jersey, New York, and they partnered together over 30 years ago and created Mellon 1. They wanted to, before that, it was, the stories are that it was live loading watermelons into bulk semis with like straw on the floor. And then that semi would drive store to store and out the side door would unload into your pigly wiggly. Go over to the Walmart. Unload. Go over to the whatever food line. And the grocery store industry was also evolving where their distribution centers were becoming

more prevalent. The pallet, cardboard bins on pallets were becoming the way things were working. And so they wanted to take my dad's crop, Richie's crop, my uncle, even Hammy's crop in South Carolina and say, let's not wait until like the week that we harvest it to sell it. Let's like try to sell it like nine months ahead of time or one year ahead of time. Let's do some, some,

let's try to stabilize this a bit. Let's lock in some prices that we know we can survive on. And they did that. And other people were doing it too, but that changed the game for the chastains. And that solicit. solidified us to where we've been able to grow in the industry, partner with other families, the Green family, Limeon Farms, who we've been hunting with Daniel.

Now seeing Ben grow into that role with his dad is really cool. The plus is there in Cordial, Anthony Brown, Daryl Lewis, that group. He's named driving watermelon farmers now. People that we met, we're not going to show everybody, but it's on camera, but it's a network of about 30 farmers. Yeah. So we can sell watermelons 365 days a year. And that's what we're proud of that it's not chastain farms anymore.

It's bigger than us. And we're proud that it's melon one, selfishly for us. Melon one. The watermelon industry is a big family, though, and I do want to say, we are competitors with a lot of people, but I promote all watermelons. When I smash a watermelon, I might get it from one of our competitors. I'll have our competitors out at the races. People that my family is directly competing to sell to a produce buyer.

at a chain store. I'm in the middle. I'm like, yes, of course, I want my family to do good and provide for ourselves. But I'm going to have the Legerr's. I'm going to have the Gipsons out at races whenever they want. And anybody in the watermelon industry knows they are always welcome. So that's a unique thing about the watermelon industry. It's a family first.

Well, I consider myself in the watermelon industry, Ross, because of how many watermelons I eat. I've told you this like 10 times, but I've got to say it to the world. They've heard about it. My world has heard about it. The watermelon's 60. Which, you know, 60 days a year, 1st of July, in August, eat watermelon every day, go through two melons a week. Usually, it's like a, it's like a, it's like a ritual.

A huge watermelon, man. Do you subtract a meal out of your day? Or is this added into it normal? It's additive. Yeah, that's a great life you're living. It's sort of additive. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls in building each of our own favorite turkey. diaphragms called prime cuts.

Now I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record. If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right? That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut.

I also hunt with Phelps's cut. and I help with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at Phelps Game Calls.com. I think you'll be glad you did. And you'll find out that the Steve Ronella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. Man, so Ross and I've been together for three days, two and a half days. Well, three days.

Three days now. And I went to town. There's a lot of cool parts of this story. I was at the Talladega Race and the pit, all that stuff. Yada, yada, yada. We've been talking about watermelon. Yeah. Serious watermelon.

I'm like, I went to my first watermelon farm, like big, large scale watermelon farm. Super impressed. And then I didn't know what kind of culture there was around watermelons. Pretty cool. Ross represents the watermelon Association of America, which I'll be vying for some, bite in that like you know uh we've been talking about national watermelon campaigns that you know maybe could go on yeah i told him about brent reeves podcast that he did early on on this country life of uh brent did an incredible episode of watermelons but um so now your story

is so cool because it's just so authentic it is and it's and it's uh i'm i'm fascinated with just rural America. And farmers are a big part of that. And then what's so cool about your story, too, is that you grew up farming, connected to the land in this, like, legitimate way. But you didn't hunt. Never hunted. But now you're hunting.

And that's, so we've been hunting this week. But tell me a little bit about that. Well, I think what my takeaway and what I'm learning is that I've grown up on land. I've been very fortunate. Like I said, I chose racing. Agriculture chose me. Like, I was born into it. And there's pictures of me as an infant in the field.

My dad holding me. What's so cool is the tractor, local tractor dealer for Cabota, Creole equipment, Creel tractor company down in Fort Myers, Florida. There's a picture of my dad in one of their old hats. They were a different brand of tractor then. And that's how my dad got started was Mark Creel loaned my dad a tractor. and I'm an infant and my dad's got their hat on and we work with them again now through Cabota

and the racing sponsorship that corporate Cabota sponsors my NASCAR Cup car. I'm able to represent a tractor brand on the racetrack. It's amazing. But on that land, driving those tractors, driving the old trucks way before I was 16, right? I was driving on the farm, working, a four-wheeler, having fun with my cousins, old cars, racing them.

hitting each other. Our stories are definitely unique to maybe other farm kids or might have a similar story, but I drove at an early age through the woods, across the fields. I never looked for animals in the way that I do now. I never looked at the land the way I did. I looked at two trees and I thought I could race around those. I looked at a field and thought I have to disc this, have to plow it or hear it. Yeah. But not where you're at the country, you call it all different things, but we call it a disc. So you're plowing the dirt over to get the, the, sand and the grass all gone so we can plant our watermelons. We need dry sand to plant in with some moisture.

And now to hunt only for this is my third season, you know, fall deer season, I just look at every piece of land, every tree in a, it's a new way. And it's what's so exciting. I've look at a watermelon field. I'm looking for things that farmers are telling me about disease. Are we getting white flies in? is there's some sort of fusarium spreading? Are we too wet?

Are we too dry? What's their layout? They're spacing. Their plant spacing. Like a lot of things I'm looking at as I go to all these different watermelon farms to see what I think is the best. Like we're going to keep evolving watermelon farming and make it better and grow a better watermelon and cost the farmer hopefully less.

Costs, input costs are always going up. But now when I pull in, I'm looking at the side of the field for a stand. I'm looking at where, as you've taught me about pinch points. and looking at natural features of the land in ways that I would have never looked at. And I haven't had that feeling about anything in years. I had it racing when I first got in. But remember, I got into the NASCAR world in 2011. I got into a truck, Justin Marks, my now owner, was getting out of in 2011, and it was all new.

And for years, I learned the sport from 2011 until now, 2025. And a bit of that newness has worn off. and for hunting and me it's brand new and I'm just when I climb a ladder I'm thinking about it because I'm just I didn't grow up doing it and I didn't grow up walking into the woods to get ready for a hunt yeah afternoon so what something that you said to me that I thought was interesting is that you you never set still on the landscape or in the woods so you would have been on the land you would have been working the land And I think it's a common thing.

Not all of them. There's some farmers that are serious hunters, but a lot of farmers, they're out there working. When they're done, they don't want to recreate in that same place sitting there. They want to be somewhere else. And so you said when you first started sitting in the woods, it was just like a whole different consideration of data points. You know, I mean, you're needing to learn tree species. and you're needing to learn about what the animals are doing and their travel patterns and wind

and it just became this whole new world, which is unique because a lot of people that get into hunting, you know, they're getting used to being outside, really, for like exposed periods of time. I mean, we live in such a bizarre time period in place where, like, we rush around from place to place trying to get away from outside. Yeah.

I mean, it's like you're standing outside in the parking, lot and you're like, let's go inside. I want to park as close to the front and everybody piles up in the front of the parking line. Like if you were just a bile just looking at humans, you'd be like, man, they're just always wanting to get inside. They're wanting to get away from outside. Yeah.

You know, and so you wouldn't have had that. Like, you would have been a farmer. You would have been exposed to a lot of it. But it's just a different, a complete, different set of considerations when you're hunting. And then what's so fun. So I was with you. yesterday when you killed a deer.

And so Ross, I mean, we could go into the story, but like he shoots this deer and it was kind of stressful. The deer came from a position we weren't expecting it. Really at a time we weren't. I mean, it was like right at dark, right at dark. And you get situated and we finally get everything set up. And I mean, it's like I could just feel the adrenaline pumping like right beside me. I kind of had to duck down into the blind when he turned and laid a gun over this rail.

And I asked him, I said, we were at Talladega two days ago. And I was like, were you ever this excited at Talladega on Sunday? And your answer was, oh, well, you asked about my heart rate. It was the heart rate ever that high. And you were shooting a doe deer, too. Yeah, with a rifle. No, not at all. And if we were to won, heart rate would have spiked.

I mean, if you're in contention for the wind, but I got shuffled back. I'd made some bad moves at Talladega. But yeah, getting turned around, my knee on the chair I'd been sitting on, and the chair almost knocked the chair over. You got her to stop. And that moment to exhale and pull the trigger, I mean, it's just, it's only, that is my fourth deer that I've ever harvested. And I respect that.

And I have, I let deer walk, but that was a cool moment to do it with you there. Of course I want the big buck to walk out. But for that land, that was the first year I've harvested on my land. Oh, was it? I didn't realize that. So really cool to see that. That's our first deer season hunting on that property. And the group I've got down there that I do it with, they've already harvested some.

But for me, that was my first. So it was a big moment. My first piece of land down there, an area of the country that I've grown up going to, know a bunch of families there. and that's why I'm down there. Yeah, it was such a cool group of people. But shaking. And what's so awesome is that it really doesn't go away.

I mean, it... I hope not. To some degree, it does. I mean, there's times when I take an animal, you know, the, like, heart thumping adrenaline is less. I mean, there's certainly times when it's higher than others based upon the circumstance. But to this day, I will still, at times, get very nervous at a dough deer when I've got a bow.

I mean, for real, that's kind of the cool thing about this. Is it, that can never, sometimes it never goes away. I hope not. And talk about a bow, I remember growing up, some, well, my best friend growing up was Cody Singletary. Singletary's big hunters, best friends, me and Cody and his older brother Matthew, and then our dads have been best friends for a long time. Our grandparents knew each other in all farms.

So watermelon farmers, we all grow for melon one. I say we, I lightly insert myself into that. It's really my daddy. You can. I think it's okay. But to grow up with them, I remember standing there, sitting on the ground, watching them shoot their bows. Ross, do you and try it?

No, I want to go ride the four-wheeler. Well, we're going to shoot bows until dark. We're shooting at the block, shooting at the decoy. We're like practicing. They're practicing. and I could have been doing that at 10 years old, and I never had any interest. And now I've asked you, like, all right,

guide me on how to buy a bow. Like, where should I go? So we've talked about that. And we'll find somewhere and go start that process sometime soon. I'm not saying I'm going to go today, but that's exciting for the next step and to be able to get more intimate and understanding than the different positions

I'm going to need to go sit and hunt from with a bow versus a rifle, was exciting because now that's like a whole other chapter of this book. Yeah. And I think I heard you say this, but there's something about the natural world that you can't control. And the exposure that I've had to the inside of inside look into NASCAR just the last couple of days, I have been amazed at the control that you guys have over that car. I mean, just phenomenal.

I mean, I could do this whole podcast just telling you what I've seen. just like the micro adjustments that they're making on these cars in the fly. Your job is so, I mean, you have a race on the weekend. Monday, you have this big meeting where this huge team comes in and you analyze the car, the data, how you did. And then today is a Tuesday. So the guys have your car in there and they are tweaking on that thing, getting ready for next week.

A ton of control is the point. of that story. When you go into the woods and you're hunting a deer, white-tailed deer or a turkey or whatever, that control is completely different. I mean, did you identify with that as something that's, that's compelling about going into the woods? It's kind of like a relaxation. Just like, this is not, nobody's asking me what to do here. Yeah.

Is that, I mean, absolutely. And that's what I love. I don't, my life and calendar is, is, I'm helped by a lot of people. I've got, we use the Apple calendar and I think there's nine, getting ready to be a 10th person added to it, the input things and they're all talking and they're all guiding me on where I need to go. And we work like almost a month out on stuff and sometimes longer stuff comes on the calendar for like already next race season. We haven't even finished this one and we're already like locking in dates down to the minute of things next year. And so when I get to the woods, I am not making a decision.

When I get away from the racetrack and away from work, I don't, you saw it, I don't want to pick where we go to breakfast. I don't want to pick where we go to dinner. I don't care what we eat. I don't care what time. I'm just along for the ride. I want everybody else to guide us, and I'll be a, I'll paddle the boat, but I'm not steering it. And so I feel like when I get in the woods and the natural part of animals and what I've learned is they're not going to do the same thing. every time.

There's going to be some wildness to it. And so not expecting that dough to walk out directly behind us. We had picked our quadrants. Yeah. A game you had us play, pick of the four quadrants. We picked, I would think I was closest-ish. You picked opposite way. Yeah, I'd say you, because the dough came from the quadrant.

So we're sitting in a box blind looking 360 degrees, and I said, let's play a game, pick which quadrant. We split it into, you know, this 360 into four. And so we guessed, and both of us were wrong. Yeah. The first one technique was... And our cameraman, Reed, was wrong.

Yeah. Well, he just copied you because, you know, this one with your... But yeah, you were closest. Yeah. So we didn't know where this deer was going to come from. So, yeah, that was... That's cool.

And, yeah, excited to learn that land more. It's new. And continue to learn land. You know, everybody's got a different angle for why they do something. And I think as long as that, and I think they're all valid, really. As long as, I mean, as long as the hunting that the person is doing is inside the limits of the law and, you know, is aiming towards some conservation goal. You know what I mean?

I mean, like, there's people that go to the woods to relax. There's also people that go to the woods not to relax. And in many cases, Ross, my hunting is probably like your NASCAR racing in a way. In that, like, I go to the woods oftentimes to test myself in a wild place, if I'm being honest. I mean, that's part of the fun of it. It's just, you know, these more difficult, strenuous hunts or more technical hunts that require a lot of time, a lot of getting stuff right, you know, the hard stuff. But I also do a lot of hunting that's just pure, just a pleasure hunt for, like, we use that term in the kundas. dog world. I always liked that since I was a kid. They were like, you pleasure hunting this

weekend? It's an interesting way to say it. But yeah, I guess so. You know, so there's different. I don't go to the woods necessarily to, I do go to the woods because my job in some way revolves around hunting, but also that's my hobby too. Like, I really don't do anything else. I think that's for me is what racing is. It's a hobby that's turned into profession. Right. But if the right circumstances, and it would have to be a social thing with buddies, with other racers, if we were going to go and have a track day, call it, we're not getting paid. We actually probably have to buy the tires and pay for the fuel and own the cars and have our own.

Like, if we were going to go do a track day with some cars or something, I would do that for fun. So you would enjoy it. Pleasure. Pleasure race. Pleasure race. But then 38 times a year I'm racing the cup car, not for pleasure. I want to win. I am there only to win. I bring my friends with me at trackhouse and we go try to win.

And it is pleasurable to do, but it is not pleasure racing. So I think it's similar for me in racing, you to hunting. For me to hunting and hunting, I want to go hunt. Now, if it was going to be more strenuous, I'd have to know that ahead of time and wear the right gear and be ready and prepared. But most of mine is so, I mean, I'm very, very new. And I think what is so cool is you can always, like every day, you could be your first day to go hunting is what I've learned.

Like my first time was with Adam, Will Haight, who you met. And David set me up with that, and they were hunting, and Adam took me and just talked me through everything. And I'll always remember that first stand we sat in, me trying to be still. And a buck did walk out. And I was like, I couldn't shoot it. I couldn't get the scope anywhere close to that buck. He was moving back and forth in rut, chasing a dough. and that was a couple years ago, three seasons ago now,

and just like, and I'm like, shoot, shoot, shoot. I never even got close, and he was going. So, like, I remember that and that adrenaline rush. Mine's definitely going to be more pleasure, I'd say, because I'm trying to relax. Yeah. It's what I want to do. Yeah, yeah.

And those, like, hard hunts, I mean, they're fun. Yeah. I mean, we're not doing it because it's not fun. It's fun. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated. with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls and building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts. Now I'm going to tell you, I love mine

because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record. If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right? that's who I listen to. I can make those sounds

on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at Phelpsgamecalls.com. I think you'll be glad you did and you'll find out that the Steve Ronella cut is an easy-to-use cut

for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. If you're not familiar with Ross Chastain. Go type in to your computer, the wall ride. Ross Chastain,

wall ride. So something happened with Ross three years ago. He was in a race. And this event has, will probably outlive him in terms of its legacy

in NASCAR. Tell me about the wall ride. So we've had this conversation before, but it's, I had to bring it up on this podcast. Yeah, so I went into the 35th race of our 36 points races, 18 points above my competitor. I need to beat the 11 of Denny Hamlin, not let him gain 18 points on me, 19. We could tie and I would win.

So it's 18 positions over the course of the race. Now, we'd had a long history that year. I had ran into him at St. Louis. He didn't. I ran into him again in Atlanta, then he ran into me at Pocono. So we had had this on track hurting each other. Is this, I'm not sure if I can bring this up or not, but it's kind of out there. Is this the guy you punch?

No, no, no, no, no, definitely not. Definitely not. That video comes up too. Yeah, that one does. And before I even knew you, I knew it wasn't your fault. Oh, well, I had a large hand to play in it. Well, as well as ending it. He started it.

And, yeah, it was, it needed to be ended. So it, and we were, Noah, Gregson and I, we walked in the gym Monday morning after that punch. shook hands and worked out together. Is that right? Is that right? Yep, he was good. I was good. Is he still race?

He does. So he was at the race Saturday? He was in it. He was leading. And you are you? We're good. Yep. He texted me last week.

They were in Nashville. Everybody thinks because of track house that we're in Nashville a lot. Yeah. And we're over here in Concord. This is where our workforce is. But our kind of soul and the foundation of the company, Justin lives in Nashville. So we do a lot there with. So anytime any of the other drivers that I'm buddies with are there, they're like,

send me a picture on Broadway. like where you at? I'm like, I'm North Carolina. I'm where you live. Yeah. We all live over here. Yeah, you could have come over to my house before you left. So.

The wall ride. I'm sorry to get distracted, but you could also see Ross getting a little scuffle. The last lap, I needed to gain two spots, and I was far enough away. I couldn't catch them. So in the final corner, I held it to the floor. I ended up shifting to fifth gear. Normally we run fifth gear all the time. And at Martin Zville, it's a unique small track.

So we run third and fourth. And I shifted to fifth. ran the wall and I gained like three seconds on my competition and that put me right ahead of the 11 which moved me on to the championship race the next week so in our first year as a team 2022 track house is second year of existence my first year with the team we're able to go fight for a championship and a four car playoff at one race and we ultimately finished second um 235 feet we lost championship by 235 feet wow so that was a bummer so he he kind of didn't to give the full drama version,

but the wall ride was imagine an oval track with concrete walls. And in the corner, you have to slow your car down to go around the corner and the guys are cutting the corner as tight as possible to make the shortest line. And so if you go wide, slower. It's slower and you're taking a longer route to get to the finish line.

So on the final lap, Ross is like 10 or 11. and he knows, just like 15 seconds before you did it, you kind of thought about this. I had accepted defeat and then off turn four taking the white flag, the last lap to start the 500 lap, it popped in my head to run the wall. What's scary, honestly, is that I couldn't think of a reason why not to do it. Why not? Why not? Why not? And I thought, well, fine, fence, fine, gate, all things it should have been like red flags.

you know, it's like I just ignored all of them and held it. And I ended up letting go with the wheel because it was shaking so violently. So we have aluminum wheels and really low sidewall, like low profile tires. Our sidewalls are very short so they don't bubble out. The year before, 2021 and all the way back in time, we had a smaller wheel and bigger tire. Fatter tires. Just the way the evolution of our car went to a single lug nut, aluminum wheel versus steel. and that aluminum wheel, the sidewall pressed in flat and like just straight up and down and the aluminum wheel slid along the steel wall.

So on the concrete then we bolt steel with foam and that steel just is smooth and that aluminum wheel just like a castor tire like a castor wheel on a dumpster. Like you can roll it. You know, it's rough but a steel wheel rolls on concrete. It rolls on asphalt. It's rough. But that's what it felt like was a steel wheel. So he used centrifugal force to basically, when these guys were slowing down to take a shorter route around the corner, you went faster, and the wall kept you in line. And basically, you were going twice as fast as them.

Basically. Normally it's like 130 on the straightaways down to 75 in the corners. Yes. Constantly accelerating and slowing down. I went 145-ish. I don't have the exact number off top of my head to say, I sped up an extra 15 miles an hour than our normal top speed because I had more straight. straight away to keep going. They hit the brakes and took a shorter distance, but I just shot around.

And I couldn't see anything that the G-forces were high. It was a couple seconds doing it. It took a couple to get around there. And the car with the independent rear suspension, the transaxil, it kept drive in the car. Like it kept the wheels on the ground, the rear tires. The left front did pick up off the ground a little, like the G-forces pulled it up. But it destroyed the car. It bent the chassis.

It broke the suspension. My breaks weren't working very good at the after, so I kind of hit the wall after the finish again, but it accomplished the goal. We went from 10th to fifth place, and that got us in the championship. And then they outlawed being able to do this. They left it for one more week. So the championship race, we were allowed to do it if we wanted. Unfortunately, Joey Lugano for Team Penske, he won the championship and won the race.

His teammate, Ryan, who wasn't in the Final Four, was right behind him. So I already knew if I did it, Ryan would just pull up and block me. So I didn't do it and Joey won. Beat me fair and square. Beech fair and square. Well, I thought it was pretty cool that they outlawed it after that. I mean, just, you know, so nobody's going to like, nobody's going to do it any better than you did it.

Not better. It has been done again on accident. Christopher Bell did. It happened to him last year, 2024. And he didn't mean to do it, but he did do it a little bit and they pulled him out of the finale for doing it. He had made it in and they pulled him out of the finale for doing it. He had made it in. hold him. That was bad.

Completely disqualified. That was disappointing because he didn't deserve that. Like, there was a lot of drama. Oh, they disciplined him. They didn't just like say that race. They disciplined him and that took him out. Oh, that's, that was bad. I don't love that because he didn't do it with my intention. My intention for 15 seconds was to do that. No, there was no rule. They created the rule. Completely legal what you did. I asked NASCAR if they'd add my initials in to the rule and it told me to get out of it. Go on. Come on. Come on. Get out. Get out of here. I thought that was pretty cool. Yeah, it was, it gets talked about as much as each win.

What I'm proud of, we won two races before that, 22. Then we won, or then we did the Hellmellon. Then we've won four more times after. They call it the Hell, Hell Mary, but it's the Hellmellon. Yeah. I like it, Ross. I like it. We've won more races after, which I'm proud of.

Yeah. Yeah. I didn't want that to be my last thing. Well, and you said that in NASCAR, that was like one of the most watched video clips of all time? Yeah, I think I've seen some reports and the best they can capture from all social media and all impressions and right clicks and everything. I don't really know what I'm talking about here, but there's been no thing, right, when you pile it all together from the winner of the Daytona 500, the winner of the Coke 600, the championship winner. Like those videos, none of them add up to anything close to what. Because it went worldwide.

There was people chiming in, other racers from other Formula One series, right, IndyCar. Because a lot of us had done it as kids. So the best I can tell you, the only way it popped in my head was as a kid, I probably did it on the GameCube. And I know I did. You turn around and go backwards on those games, right? Video console games. Hold it wide open.

Turn the automatic brakes off on the video game and just let it go into the wall. and it'll flip or whatever. And not like, oh, when I get to NASCAR and I'm racing for a championship, I'm going to do this, no, definitely. That's cool. I like it, man. Have you ever been in any bad wrecks? I have. California, 2022, spring practice, a track that's now closed down.

We've lost it. They developed that land. But, yes, bottomed out new car, the Gen 7, car was brand new. I bottom the left rear frame out and overcorrected. I started to get loose and slide the rear and I turned the wheel of the right and lifted and it caught and it comes back to that low profile tire. It acts different than our old tire and the suspension acts different. So I hit at an angle but pretty much head on at about 140 miles an hour. Into the wall. It came off the at 70. It was like hitting a wall at 70 and stopping. So you hit this wall going,

70? 140. 140. And when I came off of it, I was still going 70. It, like, redirected me, you know, at an angle. I hit it, and then I went. So did the car catch on fire? Did it tumble?

Did it just crumple up? It did not flip. And at the time, it didn't absorb much. So I took the energy. The energy, the G-forces was up in the, I don't know, mid-50s, 60 Gs of impact. there's some discrepancy on their data calculators and they're capturing at the time. Some math doesn't add up back then when you look back at it. The cars are very stiff.

Everything, all the frame rails on the new car are very horizontal. Everything's very block, I'll call it. There's no real curves to the frame. A Monte Carlo that Chevrolet would have produced in the 80s. Everything's very rounded because when it hits, they want stuff to move. They want the frame horns, frame horns to crush bumpers to come in. We had just foam and the weight was all built was very stiff. And we hurt some drivers.

Kurt Busch has retired and he took hits his whole career. It all adds up. He took a hit at Pocono that year, backed it in the wall, and he never raced again. We've learned from that. We've evolved this car. I'm proud to drive this car. I was proud then. I'm proud now.

When I took that hit, I believe if I took that same hit today, although the car is the same, technically we have modified it. The sport has, the league has, it would feel better. I would take less impact on my body. So I had some pulled muscles in my back, in my neck,

had some pain, but I race the next day. So I did. Is it scare you? It did. It did. That was the only one I've ever had that scared me. That's really scared. Yeah, and I've never had any, like,

you know, broken bones or surgeries an ice bath that night got the swelling down in my back a lot of stretching to get in the car I was still really stiff though getting in really sore and I was able to go race

and I ultimately worked my way up into the top 10 late in that race and then I spun out in the same spot but instead of overcorrecting hitting the wall I just held it left and spun the car out and ultimately cost us a good finish but it was at least

I learned my lesson because I hit the same bump I had avoided it all race and I was trying to gain some more spots at the end. I thought I'm going to go on that line again and it bottomed out the same way. Really, it was a bumping the track. Yeah, that track was really bumpy. It was an awesome track. I hate we lost it. It was super wide.

It's unlike anything we have. And they ultimately sold the land and there's some distribution centers or something there now. So, bummer. So when I was at Talladega the other day in your pit, like watching the start and just being there, I was thinking it was scary is probably the wrong word, but it was intimidating. Clearly it would be to someone who's not been there before. But after the race, we met you like after the race. He's two and a half hours like white knuckle driving this car 190 miles an hour, bumper to bumper.

I mean, you're touching the car in front of you sometimes going 190 miles an hour. Like the intensity level of it, I mean, just even as a fan was over the top. And so you, like, crawl out of the car and then we drive to go deer hunting. I didn't know what to expect from you. Like, would you be like, like, you just got out of an MMA fight, you know, and you, or would you be, like, like, super tired or would you, I had no idea. And you were just like you are right now when you got out of that car. That was my perception. Yeah.

And I think I asked you, was that scary? Yeah. because in my mind, you know, Ross has raced this whole life and I'm like, the one race I see, I'm like, man, I hope he's okay. I mean, I hardly know this guy and I'm like, man, this is dangerous. I don't know about this. But you said that you're, you don't, like you're not afraid at all. You're more scared climbing a deer stand than driving in that Talladega race or any race. Yeah, absolutely.

That's astonishing to me. I have respect for racing. I don't, I don't, I know, I know that I will not. always race. I know one day I'm going to stop racing. Now, I hope it's on my own terms. I hope that I'm able to decide that and plan that out. I don't want it to be taken from me, but I respect that it could. Like, I'm not guaranteed to race this weekend. Like, yeah, we're back from deer hunting. I'm going to prepare now the rest of the week. I'm not going to, you know, I'm really not going to think about hunting other than maybe some memories from the week, but I'm going to focus now for

several days on Martinsville and Phoenix. And that's what I'm going to roll right out of Martinsville. and nothing ahead of Phoenix or straight into our finale a week and a half. So I respect racing from that aspect, just like I respect climbing a ladder in a tree or climbing up into a box blind. I just, I don't,

I don't lose sight of like one slip off that ladder and it changes things. One bad wreck and it changes things. Like, we're human. This is not, nobody's getting out of this alive. and I respect that in all aspects of things I do. When I get on the highway to drive home,

I have a respect that and a feeling that could be my last time. I'm not like a morbid, I'm not saying it in a morbid way. I'm just that I respect it. So I enjoy the time here. I don't take it for granted walking in these front doors. Walking in your eyes were big to this shop, right? I've now walked into this building since 2018. I was first invited here and hired here to drive.

for $0 in their Xfinity car. I got an opportunity as like a three race tryout, and I was able to win one of those, finished second and another and crash for the lead and the third one. And that got me, and I'm still here. That was 2018, and I've made a home here. The name has changed, the people have changed,

but some of us are still here, and that's really cool, and I wouldn't want to be doing it right with anybody else. So I just have a respect that, like, one day is going to be my last day walking in here. Now, I hope it's when we moved to some, some bigger shop and we're in this better situation and track house has grown. But yeah, I don't, I appreciate that the race was over.

I think I had a bush light in my hand when I walked up to you. I had a bowl of chicken and rice. I think I had some broccoli and chicken and rice and had a meal and had a beer and was ready to jump in the truck and ride the deer camp. And then we had a good couple of days. Yeah. You know, when you told me that, it reminded me people not, it's not, hunters that ask me this, but people that just don't understand much about hunting or bears in

particular. And people hear that we bear hunt. And the first question that people want to ask me is, are you not afraid? You know, and I respond the exact same way that you do about your car. It's like, no. And it's not bravado or something, but people that hunt bears aren't afraid of bears. Like, bears are not. You should be much more afraid of driving down the interstate.

And we had this conversation. I mean, like, it's probably more dangerous driving down the interstate than it is you driving out there 190 miles an hour in the car that you're driving, you know? Yep. So, yeah, to the uninitiated, everything seems unusual. Yep. Or you become, like, hyper aware of the, of the danger of it, just because you're, like, just not, you just haven't been there before. Yeah. But, you know, I had such a good time. I was amazed at the access.

I've heard it said before this week that the cool thing about being a NASCAR fan is the access that you can get. I mean, they were fans like minutes before you get in your car, like swarming you, getting pictures. Yeah, if you've never been to a NASCAR event, you should go. You should go. Before we close, what do you want to do inside a hunting? I realize this is your third season. You're new to it. You probably don't know all the options, nor do you need to.

I don't know. You could hunt in Georgia for the rest of your life, deer hunting at that camp with those friends and have a very, very rich component of your life that's honey. That's the cool thing about it is you don't have to do anything. But do you have any goals? I mean, even like deer hunting on your land, like, do you have any goals? Well, I know an area that I'm going to spray and burn because it's a little thick.

Yes. It's a little thick. So that is on the docket. David was laughing. We had to track his deer a little bit last night. I did. Some thick stuff. Pushed a little to the right.

That's good deer habitat, though. I know, I know it. I know it. I was all in it. Well, you were in it? Yeah. Yeah, I want to work that land. I want to continue to learn it.

Like I told you, I had hunted the gilly, but I had not hunted that tower blind. So I'd like to add some burl. Like little things. Like I want to add some burlap. I didn't like that we were so exposed. Yeah. They liked it. You want to learn how to hunt your land.

I want to do it a bit my way. And I want to be a little more covered up and blend in a little more. So I don't know. But you like white tail hunting. I mean, that's kind of what you're focused on right now. White tail hunting. It is. It is.

And yeah, hunting hogs is something that we do in South Florida. So I've done that before. But that's not a sitting thing as much. Those are nuisance. They're eating the watermelon. That's more of an ag hunt, totally different atmosphere when we do that. So have met a friend in Kansas. his daughter actually works here at trackhouse and met her dad and mom and so I've been out to his

place last year. I'm going to go again this year with a farmer from Florida. So mine is definitely if I'm going to my land, I can go by myself and sit and I don't text them, text the group chat a picture or something, but my hunting buddies. Other than that, if I'm going somewhere, I want to, it's social for me. I want to do it with people that want to go to deer can am and have that experience. Justin Mark's no different. Him and I got into hunting on the same day. Neither one of us had ever done it.

He's hiked mountains, right? Like, climbed. He's a climber. I've been in fields. He's been in the wilderness. He never, and I never, like, we never looked at the woods like we look at it now. And for him and I, it's been so cool to have this professional relationship we've built after over a decade of a personal friendship.

And now we've grown it into hunting. So I kind of have three different parts. of Justin that we've, and he has three different parts of me that we've grown through and to get to go race and win races together and see what he's built a worldwide brand now where trackhouse has won now in MotoGP. In America, MotoGP is not what it could be. It's not nearly as popular as NASCAR. Motorcycle.

Motorcycle racing on circuits. So it's the fast motorcycles where the riders are leaned over on the racetrack that a Formula One car would race on in their elbow and knee. He was touching the ground. They have pucks on their elbows. Roel was able to get his first win for himself and trackhouse. So I look at that like we were just a couple years ago. And I met Roelho, he's been here to America, came to the shop,

and to see his struggles and now see his success and see Justin, who's, I think, the way I know it, one of his first loves was MotoGP racing, even before NASCAR. So to see that come through for him to get to see him Sunday after his team won all the way in Australia. there. It's a bummer. I wish he would have been there, but he was with us in Talladega getting ready to go to Deer Camp. You got a guy that has built a race-winning NASCAR team, has won a race in the nationwide series and now Xfinity series, getting ready to be O'Reilly Auto Parts series. It's stepping through some names and has built this winning organization here with all of his

drivers winning and now winning in Australia, in Motor GP. It's just incredible. And the fact that he wants to go to deer camp with me for two days. It's so cool. Yeah. And we have learned it together. We're learning about ammunition together. We're learning about guns together. You know, everybody and both of our families are not hunters.

Like, we both are catching some flack for it. You know, we have to have, both have hard conversations with our family that can be tough about why we want to do this and the respect we have for it, right? So doing that together has been really, really cool. I think it's very unique. I don't see that in a lot of NASCAR. And I want to do this with my people. I want to go hunt with my people.

I want to go racing with my people. And Justin's my people. So we have a good time. Man, that's cool. Very cool. Yeah. Well, Ross, man, for a guy that has been on a Super Bowl commercial, on a halftime Super Bowl commercial,

you're incredibly humble and been really genuine and fun to hang out with. And I hope we get to do something together again at some point inside of hunting. I want to bring my wife to a NASCAR race. She wants to come. Come on. She does. But it's been a pleasure. Thank you for the hospitality.

Yeah. So we're at the, now we're going to go tour the track house facility. That's right. We're here at the cup shop. This is where our cars get assembled, nearly 190 employees, nearly 200, right around 190, and a lot of them live right in this area, come to this shop. Their careers, their lives, their families all revolve around these three race cars going and trying to win every Sunday. We've been able to win six races as a team this year.

I've got one. SVG has got five, the last five road course races. So definitely a lot to celebrate as we wrap up the year. Awesome, man. Cool. Keep the wild place is wild because that's where the bears live. On Blood Trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over. They just get darker.

I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bed. And there was a full of blood. Oh, my God. He doesn't have a hit. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors. Where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets bears. under brush and silence.

Indications were he should be right there, but he wasn't. This season, we're going deeper, from cold case files to whispered suspicions, from remote mountains to frozen backwoods. Each story begins in the wilderness and ends in darkness. Because out here, there are no witnesses, no cameras, just fragments and the people left behind trying to piece them back together. He's not an honest person. He's incapable of. for being honest. Somebody somewhere knows something.

I'm Jordan Sillers. Season 2 of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, IHeart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.